BOSTON (AP) — Charlie McAvoy started a three-goal flurry in a 54-second span in the first period, David Pastrnak had a goal and two assists and the Boston Bruins held off the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3 on Thursday night.
Boston won for the ninth time in 11 games.
Elias Lindholm and Tanner Jeannot also scored for the Bruins, who made the Golden Knights pay after a double minor for high-sticking was assessed to forward Tomas Hertl at the nine-minute mark of the opening period. Appearing in his second straight game, Joonas Korpisalo made 29 saves.
Vegas cut a 4-0 deficit in half during the opening minutes in the third period behind goals from Jack Eichel and Tomas Hertle. The Golden Knights made it three straight when Pavel Dorofeyev scored with 2:35 left with goalie Akira Schmid off for an extra skater,
Schmid remained in net after a shaky sequence that began when McAvoy blasted one from just inside the blue line for his fourth goal of the season. The goal came 10 seconds into the four-minute power play.
Boston kept charging and made it two power-play goals in 30 seconds when Lindholm scored between the circles for ninth goal of the season. Pastrnak assisted on both power-play goals.
Jeannot capped the spree off a feed from Sean Kuraly with 9:54 left.
SABRES 4, CANADIENS 2
MONTREAL (AP) — Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 32 saves, Jason Zucker, Beck Malenstyn and Zach Benson gave Buffalo an early lead and the Sabres beat Montreal for their 17th victory in 21 games.
Peyton Krebs added an empty-netter in the third. The Sabres improved to 28-17-5, beating Montreal for the second time in eight days.
Cole Caufield scored for the fourth straight game for Montreal, and Nick Suzuki also connected, The Canadiens dropped to 28-16-7. They had won two in a row.
Samuel Montembeault stopped 13 shots in his first regulation loss since being called up from a conditioning assignment with Laval of the AHL on Dec. 27.
Buffalo is two points behind Montreal for third place in the Atlantic Division.
BLACKHAWKS 4, HURRICANES 3, SO
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) —Oliver Moore scored in the shootout on his 21st birthday and Spencer Knight stopped five of six shots by Carolina to give Chicago a shootout win.
Connor Murphy, Ilya Mikheyev and Nick Lardis scored in regulation for the Blackhawks. Knight, who shut out Winnipeg on Monday night, made 28 saves in regulation and overtime for his second straight win.
Joel Nystrom, Jordan Staal and Jackson Blake scored for the Hurricanes, whose five-game home winning streak ended. Frederik Andersen stopped 18 shots and four more in the shootout.
The win capped an eventful night for Moore, who celebrated a milestone birthday. He was on the wrong side of a fight with Alexander Nikishin in the second period and then nearly won the game in overtime but was robbed by Andersen.
Chicago led 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, but couldn’t put the Hurricanes away in regulation. Carolina has yet to lose in regulation with top defenseman Jaccob Slavin in the lineup (8-0-3).
BLUE JACKETS 1, STARS 0
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Jet Greaves had 28 saves for his third career shutout, Zach Werenski scored his 19th goal of the season, and Columbus beat Dallas.
Werenski scored at 8:48 of the first period with a wrist shot from the right circle that went through traffic and inside the far post with assists from Damon Severson and Isac Lundestrom, who had missed 12 games with a lower-body injury suffered in practice on Dec. 27.
The Blue Jackets have now won five of their last six.
Casey DeSmith stopped 21 of the 22 shots he faced but could not prevent the Stars from losing for the fourth time in their last five games. The Stars outshot the Blue Jackets 28-22.
Blue Jackets forward Charlie Coyle played in his 1,000th career game, the fifth player to reach the mark in a Columbus uniform. He scored into an empty net late in the game but the goal was disallowed for offside.
Murphy and Blake traded goals 82 seconds apart near in the back half of the third period to send it to overtime.
Andersen came up with a pair saves — on Moore and Frank Nazar — in the third period to keep the game tied at 2 . He made two bigger saves — on Wyatt Kaiser and Moore — in overtime.
PREDATORS 5, SENATORS 3
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Steven Stamkos broke a tie with 2:13 left with his third goal of the game and Nashville overcame a three-goal deficit to beat Ottawa.
After Stamkos tied it at 3 with 9:53 left with his second power-play goal of the game, Ryan O’Reilly beat the Senators to the puck behind the goal line and popped it out front to Stamkos, who batted it out of the air past goalie James Reimer.
O’Reilly set up the tying goal, too, firing a cross-crease feed to Stamkos with the man advantage. Nashville got the power play when Tim Stutzle cross-checked Stamkos.
Predators captain Roman Josi, playing his 1,000th NHL game, also assisted on the tying goal. The defenseman is the 84th player in NHL history to play his first 1,000 regular-season games with one franchise.
Stamkos had his second hat trick of the season and 16th overall to push his season goals total to 24. Jonathan Marchessault also scored, and Cole Smith had an empty-netter. Juuse Saros made 23 saves to help Nashville end a three-game losing streak.
PANTHERS 2, JETS 1, SO
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Anton Lundell and Sam Reinhart beat Connor Hellebuyck in a shootout to help give Florida a victory over Winnipeg.
Winnipeg shooters Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele came up empty against Daniil Tarasov in the tiebreaker.
Sam Bennett scored in regulation, and Tarasov stopped 17 shots for two-time defending champion Florida. Matthew Tkachuk had an assist for his first point of the season in his second game back from adductor muscle surgery.
The Panthers are 4-2-0 in their last six to improve to 26-20-3.
Cole Perfetti scored for Winnipeg, and Hellebuyck stopped 19 shots. The Jets are 5-1-2 in their last eight to get to 20-23-7.
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