Alex Ovechkin scored twice to reach the 20-goal mark for the 19th time in his career and help the resurgent Washington Capitals earn an important 5-2 victory over the Calgary Flames on Monday.
Ovechkin's 20th and 21st goals of the season, both of which came on power plays in the second period, sparked the Capitals' third straight win. Washington is now 10-4-1 since Feb. 17 and one point ahead of the slumping Detroit Red Wings in the race for the Eastern Conference's final wild-card spot.
Dylan Strome and Tom Wilson each contributed a goal and an assist to the victory, with Strome recording the lone goal of a first period in which Washington goaltender Charlie Lindgren made 12 of his 34 saves.
Ovechkin's goals came 3:18 apart in the second period and pushed the Capitals' lead to 3-0. The future Hall of Famer became the sixth player in NHL history with 19 seasons of 20 or more goals.
Kevin Rooney put Calgary on the board with 9:19 remaining in the second before Hendrix Lapierre restored Washington's three-goal advantage with 5:38 left in the period.
The Flames fought back by recording 13 third-period shots and pulled to within 4-2 when MacKenzie Weegar rocketed the puck past Lindgren 7:13 into the frame.
Lindgren stood tall the rest of the way, however, before Wilson put the game out of reach with an empty-net goal with 2:29 left.
Dustin Wolf stopped 28 of 32 shots for Calgary, which had a two-game winning streak halted.
Skinner's hat trick helps Sabres rout Kraken
Jeff Skinner recorded a hat trick and helped the Buffalo Sabres to a fast start which carried them to a 6-2 drubbing of the Seattle Kraken.
Skinner, Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch all had goals in the first 5:41 of the game to spark Buffalo's fourth win in its last five outings. The surge has moved the Sabres within four points of a play-off spot in the Eastern Conference.
Thompson and Tuch added assists during Buffalo's early barrage, which came after Jordan Eberle gave Seattle a quick 1–0 lead just 24 seconds into the contest.
Thompson tied the game a mere 25 seconds later, however, and Skinner and Tuch soon followed with goals as the Sabres scored on three of their first four shots to prompt the Kraken to pull goaltender Joey Daccord less than six minutes in.
Seattle got one goal back before the conclusion of the period when Matty Berniers converted a power play, but failed to solve Buffalo's Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen the rest of the way.
Luukkonen stopped 32 shots, including all 18 he faced in the third period.
After Owen Power's goal midway through the second period put Buffalo up 4-2, Skinner fired a shot past Seattle replacement netminder Philipp Grubauer just 42 seconds later.
Skinner completed his first hat trick of the season by beating Grubauer on a rush with 1:59 left to play.
Grubauer finished with 23 saves in Seattle's fifth consecutive loss (0-4-1).
Jamaica tops inaugural Ice Hockey Challenger Series
Jamaica’s Ice Hockey team emerged victorious in the final match of the Challenger Series after beating a very strong Lebanon team 12-8 at the College Ice Arena in Toronto on Saturday evening.
In a pulsating match played before hundreds of cheering supporters, Jamaica took the early lead in the first period but fell behind after Lebanon scored three unanswered goals over the next 15 minutes of the first period. During the second of three 20-minute periods, Jamaica regrouped and fought back to take a 6-4 lead, before Lebanon pulled level at 6-6.
Buoyed by the enthusiastic support from the massive crowd, Jamaica asserted their authority on the contest to end the period at 9–6. With victory in sight at the start of the third and final period, the Jamaicans applied pressure on their Lebanese counterparts and extended their lead to 11-7 with four minutes left in the game.
Tight defensive work then ensured Jamaica added to their tally, though they also conceded another goal in the latter stages of the encounter. Reggie Millette and Givani Smith both scored a brace, while Maleek McGowan, Captain Taos Jordan, Amari Sellers, Tyler Drummond, Dante Sheriff, Avery Grant, Josh Mitton, and Marquis Grant-Mentis got the others.
The Challenger Series is a new tournament involving Puerto Rico, Lebanon, and Jamaica, who are all associate members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).
The Challenger Series began in Chicago in April, continued in New York in June, and culminated in Toronto on Saturday. At the end of the second leg in New York, Jamaica was in pole position and, as such, earned the automatic right to the final by virtue of the accumulation of points over the first two legs.
Lebanon defeated Puerto Rico 9-3 in the playoff for a spot in the final.
Across the three legs, Jamaica won six of their nine matches and now has an overall tally of 22 matches since it started to play competitively in 2019. Their record currently stands at 16 wins and six losses, with over 100 goals to their tally.
Don Anderson, president of the Jamaica Olympic Ice Hockey Federation (JOIHF), said the Federation is now setting its sights on establishing an ice rink in Jamaica as well as building a strong local program that will facilitate the team playing in qualifying tournaments for the Olympics. He added that expert opinion is that this team could be highly ranked globally if it had the opportunity to play at the next level amongst countries with Ice Rinks.
NHL free agency: Predators sign Stamkos, Marchessault, Skjei
The Nashville Predators came out aggressively on the first day of NHL free agency Monday with the additions of forwards Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault along with defenseman Brady Skjei.
Stamkos spent his entire 16-year career with the Tampa Bay Lightning after being selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NHL Draft.
The 34-year-old Stamkos won two Stanley Cup titles with Tampa Bay and is the franchise leader in games (1,082), goals (555) and points (1,137).
Marchessault, 33, played the last seven seasons with the Vegas Golden Knights after being an original member of the expansion franchise in 2017-18.
He was the Conn Smyth Trophy winner as play-off MVP in 2023 after leading Vegas to its first Stanley Cup championship.
Marchessault set a career high this past season with 42 goals and leaves the Golden Knights as the club’s all-time leader in games (514), goals (192) and assists (225).
Marchessault and Stamkos were teammates for parts of the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.
Skjei, 30, is also coming off a career season with a personal-best 47 points (13 goals, 34 assists) with the Carolina Hurricanes.
He began his career with the New York Rangers in 2015 and was traded to Carolina in February 2020.
Nashville was eliminated in the first round of the post-season in 2023-24 and has not won a play-off series since advancing to the Western Conference semi-finals in 2018.
Panthers top Oilers in Game 7 to win Stanley Cup
It took 30 years for the Florida Panthers to win their first Stanley Cup.
For Paul Maurice, the wait was nearly as long.
Sam Reinhart's tie-breaking goal late in the second period held up as the Panthers captured the NHL's most coveted trophy for the first time with Monday's 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of a memorable Stanley Cup Final.
Carter Verhaeghe also had a goal and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 shots - including all nine he faced in the third period - to also give Maurice his first Stanley Cup after nearly 2,000 combined regular-season and play-off games as a head coach.
Maurice is in his 26th season leading an NHL team, the longest wait of any head coach in the four major North American professional sports leagues before winning his first championship.
While Maurice and the Panthers' long streaks came to an end, another continues on as the Oilers' loss marks the 31st consecutive season a Canadian team has not hoisted the Cup since the Montreal Canadiens' win in 1993.
Edmonton was also bidding to become only the second team in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup after losing the first three games of the best-of-seven finals, a feat the Toronto Maple Leafs accomplished in 1942.
Oilers' captain Connor McDavid still took home the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the play-offs after setting an NHL post-season record with 42 points. The superstar centre is just the second skater on a losing team to win the award, joining the Philadelphia Flyers' Reggie Leach in 1976.
McDavid recorded a pair of four-point outings in Games 4 and 5 to help Edmonton extend the series, but the three-time Hart Trophy recipient was kept off the scoresheet by a stout Florida defensive effort for a second straight game in Monday's finale.
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