Matt Calvert, Artem Anisimov and David Savard scored in the first 11 minutes and 10 seconds, and the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Rangers 4-2 on Thursday night, sending New York to their fourth straight loss.
The Rangers, 0-3-1 on their nine-game home stand, closed within 3-2 in the third period, but Ryan Johansen pushed Columbus’ lead back to two goals with 1:32 left.
The Blue Jackets’ goalie tandem of Curtis McElhinney and Mike McKenna, who are subbing for injured reigning Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky, stopped 32 of 34 shots.
Photo: AFP
Dominic Moore and defenseman Dan Girardi scored for New York (15-16-1). Henrik Lundqvist was pulled after he stopped only 10 of 13 shots in the first period.
Cam Talbot relieved and made 13 saves the rest of the way, allowing only Johansen’s goal between his pads.
FLYERS 2, CANADIENS 1
In Philadelphia, Michael Raffl and Claude Giroux scored goals, while Steve Mason made 20 saves as Philadelphia edged Montreal.
Jakub Voracek had two assists and Giroux also had an assist to help the Flyers snap a three-game losing streak, and extend their home winning streak to six games. They were coming off a 2-3-1 trip in which they finished up 0-2-1.
Mason shut the Canadiens out for 59 minutes before Alex Galchenyuk scored with 55.1 seconds left to cut it to 2-1.
The Canadiens have lost two in a row after going 9-0-1. They followed a 6-0 loss at home to the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday with another offensive clunker.
SENATORS 2, SABRES 1
In Ottawa, Craig Anderson stopped 40 shots in the Senators’ win over Buffalo.
Bobby Ryan and Zack Smith scored for the Senators (13-14-6), who have earned at least a point in four straight games.
Tyler Ennis scored the lone goal for the Sabres (7-23-2) and Ryan Miller made 30 saves.
This was the second of back-to-back games between the teams. Buffalo earned a 2-1 shootout victory on Tuesday.
LIGHTNING 2, RED WINGS 1, SO
In Tampa, Martin St Louis scored in the sixth round of the shootout as Tampa Bay beat Detroit.
St Louis netted the lone shootout goal when he beat Jonas Gustavsson to the stick side. Detroit, who have lost all six of their shootouts this season, failed this time against Ben Bishop.
Nikita Kucherov scored for the Lightning in regulation. Kyle Quincey had the Red Wings’ only goal of the night.
Quincey put the Red Wings up 1-0 with his first goal in 51 games at 15:04 of the first. The defenseman also snapped a 16-game point drought.
Kucherov tied it with 43.7 seconds remaining in the second.
BLUES 6, MAPLE LEAFS 3
In St Louis, David Backes scored twice and Jaden Schwartz added a goal and two assists to lead St Louis over Toronto.
St Louis have won eight of 11 overall. At 13-2-2, the Blues are tied with Boston, Pittsburgh and Minnesota for most home-ice wins.
Toronto lost their third in a row.
Alexander Steen, Derek Roy and Chris Stewart scored for St Louis. The teams met for the first time since Nov. 10, 2011.
Nazem Kadri, Nikolai Kulemin and James van Riemsdyk scored for the Maple Leafs, who got two goals in the final 5.5 minutes.
Brian Elliott, appearing in his third successive game, made 19 saves to improve to 6-1-1.
Steen scored his 22nd goal, second in the National Hockey League to Washington’s Alex Ovechkin, who has 26.
In other play, it was:
‧ Predators 3, Stars
‧ Avalanche 4, Jets 3
‧ Coyotes 6, Islanders 3
‧ Bruins 4, Oilers 2
‧ Flames 2, Hurricanes 1
‧ Sharks 3, Wild 1
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