Nashville’s James Neal scored late in overtime to give the Predators a 3-2 win against Tampa Bay in Tuesday’s clash of the two NHL conference leaders.
The Predators opened a three-point lead in the overall league standings, as nearest rivals Anaheim suffered a heavy defeat in Florida.
Tampa Bay’s defeat saw their lead in the Eastern Conference trimmed to a single point ahead of Montreal, who defeated Philadelphia in overtime.
In another key game, Winnipeg beat Minnesota to boost the Jets’ playoff chances.
Nashville’s Seth Jones and Taylor Beck scored to help send the game to overtime, and with 4 minutes, 27 seconds gone in the extra period, Neal’s wrist shot from the left circle went between the pads of Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Brett Connolly and Nikita Kucherov scored for Tampa Bay.
Anaheim dropped off Nashville’s pace after a 6-2 defeat in Florida.
Panthers’ goaltender Roberto Luongo made 31 saves and the hosts got goals from six players: Jimmy Hayes, Dave Bolland, Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad, Nick Bjugstad and Dmitry Kulikov.
Tim Jackman and Kyle Palmieri scored for the Ducks, who lost their third straight game.
Montreal moved right onto the tail of Tampa Bay by winning 2-1 against Philadelphia.
David Desharnais scored 3 minutes, 27 seconds into overtime, while Tomas Plekanec scored in the third period for the Canadiens, who won their third straight game.
Matt Read scored for the Flyers.
Winnipeg’s Dustin Byfuglien scored on a breakaway four minutes into overtime to give the Jets a 2-1 win against Minnesota.
The result widened the gap between the two playoff aspirants to seven points.
Toby Enstrom scored in regulation time for the Jets.
Jason Pominville scored for the Wild, who had won their previous six games.
Dallas’ Jamie Benn scored twice for the Stars, who twice scored when a man down and beat Boston 5-3.
Vernon Fiddler ended Boston’s run as the only remaining NHL team who had not allowed a short-handed goal this season when he scored unassisted 7 minutes, 28 seconds into the game, and Trevor Daley repeated the feat.
The Stars won despite being outshot 44-32.
St Louis’ Dmitrij Jaskin scored a go-ahead goal for the second time in four games and helped the Blues beat Arizona 2-1.
The New York Rangers edged Toronto 5-4, with Mats Zuccarello scoring his second goal of the game with 5 minutes, 56 seconds left.
The New York Islanders also won a tight game, downing Edmonton 2-1 after Casey Cizikas snapped a tie with 4 minutes, 37 seconds left.
Ottawa’s Milan Michalek scored 12 minutes, 15 seconds into the third period to give the Senators a 2-1 win against Buffalo.
Fenerbahce on Thursday earned a rare 2-1 win in England, but were still knocked out of the UEFA Europa League by Nottingham Forest in the playoffs. Forest entered the second leg with a healthy 3-0 lead from the opener in Istanbul — where Vitor Pereira made an impact in his first game in charge — and that proved enough to advance to the round-of-16 with a 4-2 aggregate score. The result was a boost for Forest, struggling at 17th place in the Premier League, in their return to Europe after three decades. They next face Real Betis Balompie or Kerem Akturkoglu gave Fenerbahce
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