TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nikita Kucherov scored to give him his ninth 30-goal season and added two assists for 701 in his career and the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 on Wednesday night for their sixth straight victory.
Brayden Point had two goals and an assist, Gage Goncalves had a goal and two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 32 saves for the Lightning, who are 20-1-1 in their past 22 games. Vasilevskiy is 17-0-1 since Dec. 20.
Tampa Bay won in its first game back from the Olympic break without coach Jon Cooper on the bench. Cooper, who led Canada to the silver medal at the Milan Cortina Games, will miss two games after the death of his father, Robert.
Assistant Rob Zettler stepped in for Cooper and the Lightning ended the Maple Leafs’ three-game winning streak.
The Russian-born Kucherov got his 700th assist in his 855th NHL game, becoming the second-fastest player born outside of North America to reach the mark and trailing only Peter Stastny (784 games). The milestone assist came on Goncalves’ goal at 7:58 of the second period that gave the Lightning a 2-0 lead.
Kucherov’s 30th goal came at 2:59 of the third and made it 3-0. His nine 30-goal seasons tie him with Steven Stamkos for the most in team history.
John Tavares and Matthew Knies scored and Anthony Stolarz made 32 saves for the Maple Leafs, whose five-game winning streak against the Lightning was stopped.
CAPITALS 3, FLYERS 1
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defensemen Trevor van Riemsdyk and Rasmus Sandin ended long goal droughts and Washington beat Philadelphia, its fifth win in their last six games.
The Capitals now have 42 goals from defensemen this season, the second most in the NHL behind Columbus.
Aliaksei Protas scored an empty-netter for Washington with 26 seconds to play when the Flyers had a six-on-four for his 20th goal of the season, and Logan Thompson made 23 saves. Protas also had an assist.
Noah Cates scored for Philadelphia 29 seconds into the third period, his first goal in 19 games, and Dan Vladar made 26 stops as the Flyers lost for the sixth time in their last seven games to fall further out of playoff position.
After a scoreless first period, Sandin scored his third goal of the season and his first since Nov. 13 with 6:08 to play in the second. With an assist on the goal, Jakob Chychrun now has 11 points (3 goals, 8 assists) in his last eight games.
SABRES 2, DEVILS 1
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — U.S. Olympian Tage Thompson scored his 31st goal of the season and added an assist to help Buffalo beat New Jersey in the NHL’s return to action.
Thompson had three goals and an assist in six games in Milan for the champion United States.
Peyton Krebs also had a goal and an assist, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 27 saves. The Sabres have won seven of 10 to improve to 33-19-6.
Buffalo is looking to make the playoffs for the first time in 14 seasons. The Sabres entered Wednesday night in the top wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Thompson scored in the second period, and Krebs made it 2-0 midway through the third. Timo Meier scored for New Jersey with 2:30 to play.
U.S. Olympic hero Jack Hughes was honored by the Devils before the game, and assisted on Meier’s goal. The Devils showed video of Hughes’ overtime goal in the United States’ 2-1 victory over Canada on Sunday in the gold-medal game.
STARS 4, KRAKEN 1
DALLAS (AP) — Wyatt Johnston scored his 30th and 31st goals of the season as Dallas beat Seattle.
Matt Duchene had a goal and an assist, and Sam Steel also scored for the Stars, who have won seven consecutive games for the first time since last March 22 to April 3.
Johnston scored his 19th power-play goal — the most in the NHL this season and setting a Dallas season record — for a 4-0 lead. He has three consecutive 30-goal seasons and five multigoal games this season. Hitting pipes twice in the third period kept him from a fifth career regular-season hat trick.
Dallas goalie Casey DeSmith, backup to Team USA’s Jake Oettinger, made 18 saves. DeSmith went into play sixth in the NHL with a 2.37 goals-against average.
Defenseman Ryker Evans scored a third-period goal, and Joey Daccord stopped 28 shots for the Kraken.
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