Washington @ NY Rangers 4-3 OT
Alex Ovechkin scored his 499th NHL goal 1:25 into overtime to give the Capitals a 4-3 win against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. It was Ovechkin's second goal of the game and 24th of the season; he is one shy of becoming the 43rd player to score 500 goals. Nicklas Backstrom tied the game 3-3 with 5.7 seconds left in the third period. Justin Williams also scored, and Braden Holtby made 23 saves for Washington. Moments after Nate Schmidt made a game-saving play against Derek Stepan, Ovechkin skated the length of the ice with the puck and sent a wrist shot past Lundqvist, depriving New York of what arguably would have been its biggest win of the season. Ovechkin scored No. 498 on a power play with 14.8 seconds left in the first period. After Stalberg was whistled for interference, Dan Girardi coughed up the puck behind the net to Ovechkin, who quickly poked it past Lundqvist to give Washington a 1-0 lead. Holtby denied Mats Zuccarello on a breakaway 3:06 into the second period. Zuccarello, who leads New York with 31 points, got a step ahead of the defense and let go a wrist shot from between the circles that Holtby managed to turn aside with his left pad. Williams gave Washington a 2-0 lead 50 seconds later when he was sent in on a breakaway with a cross-ice feed from Schmidt. Williams deked to his right and let go a shot that went off Lundqvist's left skate and right pad before trickling over the goal line. Lindberg scored 5:54 into the third period. He took a cross-ice feed from Dominic Moore and one-timed a shot from the right circle past Holtby to make it 2-1. It was Lindberg's first goal since Dec. 3. New York tied it 2-2 when Hayes scored his first goal since Nov. 23 at 9:48 of the third. Moments after Hayes left the penalty box, Ryan McDonagh let go a shot from the right point through a crowd that Hayes redirected past Holtby. Hayes had three assists in his previous 17 games and has been healthy scratch. Stalberg gave the Rangers a 3-2 lead at 13:11. Hayes made a nice play along the boards to send the puck back to the blue line, where Keith Yandle sent a shot toward the net that was redirected by Stalberg past Holtby for his third goal in the past four games. Backstrom tied it at 19:54. With Holtby pulled for an extra attacker, Williams let go a shot from the slot that was denied by Lundqvist, but Backstrom collected the rebound and put it between Lundqvist's skates. New York had back-to-back chances to win it overtime. Holtby came up with the first save, when he got his right pad on Rick Nash's turnaround shot from the slot at 1:12. The rebound went right to Stepan, who appeared to have an empty net, but Schmidt managed to get his stick on the second chance before the puck crossed the goal line, which allowed Ovechkin to start a rush the other way.
NY Islanders @ Philadelphia 0-4
Read had an assist on Raffl's goal to open the scoring 1:27 into the second period, and then started the cycle play at the top of the Islanders' zone that led to Medvedev's goal at 8:33 of the second. Read dropped a pass to Medvedev who was given a clear path to the net along the right side. His low wrist shot went between Halak's pads for his third goal of the season. Read's goal at 10:58 of the third made it 3-0 and also showed how much his skating has improved. Mark Streit jumped on an Islanders turnover at their blue line and found Read entering the offensive zone with speed. He split the defense and sent a wrist shot that squeezed between Halak's pads. Couturier finished the scoring when he tipped Radko Gudas' shot from the right circle past Halak at 15:14.
Boston @ Ottawa 1-2 OT
Mark Stone scored with 37.5 seconds left in overtime to give the Senators a 2-1 win. Stone lifted the rebound of his wraparound attempt over Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask and just under the crossbar a few seconds after Boston's Loui Eriksson had hit the post. The Bruins tied the game 41 seconds into the second period after a couple of mistakes by the Senators in their own end. Anderson failed to stop a puck behind the net on a shoot-in, and Stone gave the puck away to Patrice Bergeron along the left-wing boards. Bergeron gave it to Zdeno Chara, whose shot from the left point was deflected by Pasternak and went past Anderson. The Senators scored the only goal of the first period on a splendid example of why Erik Karlsson is one of the NHL's most dangerous offensive defensemen. Karlsson blocked a shot by Colin Miller in front of the Ottawa net and immediately took off as the puck bounced to the right wing. As Milan Michalek took possession, Karlsson had put three Bruins behind him by the time he reached the Ottawa blue line. Michalek made a fine pass to Karlsson in the neutral zone to create a 2-on-1 for Karlsson and Zibanejad. Karlsson went to the left and fed Zibanejad, who made a nice forehand-to-backhand deke before beating Rask at 13:28 for his eighth of the season.
Carolina @ Columbus 4-3 OT
Regulation play wasn't enough time for Jordan Staal to extend his goal streak to three games, so he did so in overtime to give the Carolina Hurricanes a 4-3 victory. He came streaking down the right side with Jacob Slavin providing support. Staal then beat rookie goaltender Joonas Korpisalo. Andrej Nestrasil scored on a power play in the first period, and goals by Kris Versteeg and John-Michael Liles gave Carolina the three-goal lead before the Columbus comeback started with a shorthanded goal by Cam Atkinson at 15:28 of the second. Alexander Wennberg and Josh Anderson, with his first NHL goal, tied it in the third period. Liles put the Hurricanes up 3-0 at 7:32 of the second. Versteeg's sixth goal, at 1:27, was his 300th NHL point. Carolina took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Nestrasil at 10:09 of the first.
Nashville @ Phoenix 0-4
Phoenix got off to a fast start with eight shots in the first six minutes, including a penalty shot after Duclair was taken down by Josi a clear path to the net. But Hutton shut down the five-hole to deny Duclair and the Predators turned the play their way the rest of the period. Nashville had 12 of their 14 shots in the final 14 minutes, five of them on a power play when Domingue made two big saves on James Neal and one on Johansen to keep the game scoreless. The Coyotes took the lead for good early in the second period after Barret Jackman was called for roughing Duclair along the boards. Hutton stopped Rieder's power-play shot from a sharp angle, but Shane Doan won the battle for the rebound and slid a no-look, backhand pass across the crease. Vermette was all by himself and buried his sixth goal of the season at 3:35. It stayed that way until the Coyotes added to their lead 55 seconds into the third period with the teams skating 4-on-4. Rieder and Connor Murphy had a 2-on-1 broken up but a trailing Martin Hanzal beat Filip Forsberg to the puck in the high slot. Hanzal threw a shot at the net that Rieder got a stick on, sending the puck flipping end over end, over Hutton and under the crossbar. Rieder hit the empty net with 3:23 left and Duclair scored his 12th of the season 5-on-5 with 14 seconds remaining. Dating back to last season, Rieder has scored 12 of his past 15 goals at Gila River Arena.
Tampa Bay @ Vancouver 3-2 OT
Nikita Kucherov scored on a breakaway 3:51 into overtime to give the Lightning a 3-2 victory. That confidence didn't waver even after Vancouver's Bo Horvat scored the tying goal with 2:50 remaining. Valtteri Filppula scored one second after a Lightning power play expired with 7:40 left in the third period to put Tampa Bay ahead 2-1, but Horvat tied it with a wrist shot from above the right faceoff circle that beat goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy past the blocker. Kucherov got behind Henrik Sedin, who went for a line change, and took a breakout pass from Vladislav Namestnikov at center ice, opening up goalie Jacob Markstrom with a quick fake before cutting wide and shooting it under his outstretched leg. Horvat, who has four goals in the past three games after going 27 without scoring, also set up Sven Baertschi's goal with a beautiful individual rush on a first period power play. Markstrom made 32 saves for the Canucks. All three Tampa Bay goals in the comeback win against Edmonton deflected in off Oilers, and Filppula's tiebreaking goal did the same. After five good saves by Markstrom with the Lightning on the power play, Filppula's shot from the right faceoff dot hit Alexander Edler's skate and went between Markstrom's legs.
Tampa Bay had the first five shots on goal and opened the scoring on the fourth after Alex Killorn won a puck battle with two Canucks defenders just outside the Vancouver zone. Killorn chipped the puck ahead to Kucherov for a 2-on-1 inside the blue line, then took the return feed in the high slot, faking Markstrom to the ice before skating wide and lifting his seventh goal past the diving goaltender for a 1-0 Lightning lead at 3:41 of the first period. The Canucks had seven straight shots of their own before Baertschi tied it on a power play with 4:36 left in the first period after a beautiful play by Horvat off the rush. Horvat skated around Victor Hedman with a toe drag through the slot, then fed a backhand pass to his left for a backdoor tap-in by Baertschi. It was Baertschi's fifth goal and seventh point in his past seven games, and the second straight game he scored after missing the previous two with a sore neck. Almost all of them have come playing with Horvat, who has five points in the past three games.
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