Red-hot Mikko Rantanen scored two more goals and Nathan MacKinnon extended a pair of streaks as the Colorado Avalanche won their eighth consecutive game, 6-1 over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday.

Cale Makar had a goal and an assist and Ross Colton also scored for the Avalanche, who have won 10 of 11 to remain tied with Dallas for the top spot in the Central Division.

Rantanen had a hat trick in Tuesday’s win over St. Louis and has eight goals in his last five games.

MacKinnon had a goal and an assist to extend his home point streak to 33 games. He also has 11 goals and 23 assists during a 17-game overall point streak.

Elvis Merzlikins stopped a season-high 44 shots for the last-place Blue Jackets.

Milano has hat trick in Capitals’ shootout win

Sonny Milano notched his first career hat trick and Dylan Strome scored the lone shootout goal to lift the Washington Capitals to a wild 7-6 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.

Strome had three assists in regulation and Alex Ovechkin, John Carlson and Ivan Miroshnichenko also scored as the Capitals won their fourth in five games to get within one point of Detroit for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot.

Sebastian Aho scored three goals and Jake Guentzel had three assists for Carolina, which had won four straight. The Hurricanes moved to 7-1-1 in their last nine games and are within one point of the Rangers for the lead in the Metropolitan Division.

Benn lifts Stars over Penguins

Jamie Benn scored two goals in a 77-second span in the second period and the Dallas Stars topped the sliding Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-2.

Joe Pavelski and Sam Steel also scored and Jake Oettinger stopped 20 shots for the Stars, who have won three in a row to tie Colorado for first place in the Central Division.

Michael Bunting and Rickard Rakell tallied for Pittsburgh, which fell to 0-6-1 in its last seven road games.

Valeri Nichushkin scored in overtime in his first game in nearly two months to lift the Colorado Avalanche to a 2-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday.

Nichushkin tallied on a power play at 2:32 of overtime in his first game since Jan. 10, five days before he entered the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program.

Artturi Lehkonen also scored and Nathan MacKinnon had a pair of assists as Colorado won its third straight and fifth in six games.

Alexander Georgiev stopped 29 shots and denied Mats Zuccarello on a penalty shot with 5:55 remaining in regulation.

MacKinnon extended his home point streak to 32 games, tied with Guy Lafleur (1978-79) for the third-longest home point run in NHL history.

Rookie Brock Faber scored for Minnesota, which is 2-0-1 in its last three games as it tries to make up ground in the playoff race.

Stars start fast in win over Ducks

Roope Hintz scored one goal and set up another during Dallas’ three-goal first period and the Stars defeated the Anaheim Ducks, 6-2, for their fourth straight win.

Jamie Benn and Joe Pavelski each had a goal and an assist for the first-place Stars, who have points in six of seven (5-1-1) to maintain a two-point lead over Winnipeg and Colorado in the Central Division.

Dallas scored three times on the power play and is 6 for 12 with the man advantage in its last three games.

Ryan Strome had a goal and an assist for the Ducks, who had won three of four.

Ingram denies slumping Red Wings

Connor Ingram made 28 saves for his sixth shutout of the season and the Arizona Coyotes snapped a seven-game home losing streak with a 4-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings.

Ingram stopped six shots in the first period, 17 in the second and five more in the third to tie Pittsburgh’s Tristan Jarry for the league lead in shutouts.

Nick Bjugstad had a goal and an assist and Alex Kerfoot, Logan Cooley and Jack McBain also scored for the Coyotes, who have won three of five following a 14-game skid.

The Red Wings have scored five goals during four consecutive losses after winning six straight.

Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Ross Colton all had goals within a span of just over four minutes in the third period to rally the Colorado Avalanche to a 6-5 win over the Calgary Flames on Monday.

Rantanen scored with 6:29 left to play to tie the game, then earned his second assist of the night when MacKinnon recorded the eventual winning goal on a breakaway with 4:30 remaining.

Colton started Colorado's comeback by knocking in a rebound with 8:40 left that cut the Flames' lead to 5-4.

Calgary had gone ahead on late second-period goals from Connor Zary and Yegor Sharangovich, with the latter prompting Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar to replace goaltender Alexandar Georgiev after the second intermission.

Ivan Prosvetov stopped all 11 shots he faced in relief of Georgiev, who allowed five goals on 22 shots.

Former Colorado center Nazem Kadri put Calgary ahead in the first period before the Avalanche's Tomas Tatar tied it later in the frame. Colorado then took a 2-1 lead when Cale Makar scored on a power play 1:43 into the second.

Goals by Andrew Mangiapane and Blake Coleman sent the Flames back in front, but Ben Meyers scored off a feed from Andrew Cogliano with 5:03 left in the second to briefly draw the Avalanche even at 3-3.

Colorado snapped a two-game losing streak, while Calgary has now lost four of five. Dan Vladar finished with 31 saves for the Flames. 

Islanders blow late, recover to defeat Maple Leafs in overtime

Bo Horvat scored 46 seconds into overtime as the New York Islanders recovered from blowing a late lead to come through with a 4-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Toronto rallied from a two-goal deficit to force overtime when Morgan Rielly scored with seven seconds remaining in regulation. Horvat sent a feed from Mathew Barzal past Maple Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov early in the extra session, however, to give New York its third consecutive win.

Rielly's goal did enable Toronto to extend its point streak to six games, a stretch in which it's gone 4-0-2. The Islanders are now 5-0-1 over their past six.

The Islanders took a 3-1 lead early in the second period on Kyle Palmieri's goal, but John Tavares scored on a redirection 7:43 into the frame to cut the Leafs' deficit to one.

Tavares, the former Islanders' captain, later recorded his 1,000th career point on Rielly's game-tying goal.

Auston Matthews' 19th goal of the season, a power-play score 5:50 into the contest, gave Toronto an early 1-0 edge before the Islanders forged ahead later in the period on goals from Brock Nelson and Casey Cizikas. 

Noah Dobson finished with three assists for New York, while Ilya Sorokin made 14 of his 37 saves in the third period and had two more in overtime.

Samsonov stopped 25 shots for Toronto.

Benn hits assist milestone as Stars down short-handed Red Wings

Miro Heiskanen had two goals and an assist to lead the way as the Dallas Stars rolled to a 6-3 victory over the depleted Detroit Red Wings. 

The Stars scored twice in all three periods, including four straight goals between the first and second, to get back on track after losing three of their four previous games. Esa Lindell and Jason Robertson each delivered a goal and an assist to support a 27-save effort from Jake Oettinger.

Jamie Benn assisted on Heiskanen's first goal, the 500th of the Dallas captain's career.

Detroit was dealt a third consecutive loss while playing without both captain Dylan Larkin and forward David Perron. Larkin is out with an upper-body injury he sustained from a cross-check by Ottawa's Mathieu Joseph in Saturday's loss to the Senators, while Perron began serving a six-game suspension for cross-checking Ottawa's Artem Zub in retaliation.

The Red Wings did take a 1-0 lead when Daniel Sprong scored 5:20 in, but goals by Heiskanen and Lindell later in the first period put Dallas ahead. Robertson and Matt Duchene then scored 2:14 apart in the second to extend the Stars' advantage to 4-1.

Jonatan Berggren quickly answered Duchene's goal to trim Detroit's deficit, and the Red Wings cut the lead to 4-3 when Joe Veleno scored on a power play with 6:39 remaining.

Joe Pavelski countered with a power-play goal 30 seconds after Veleno's strike, however, before Heiskanen sealed the win with an empty-netter inside the final minute.

James Reimer stopped 29 of 34 shots for Detroit.

Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn has been suspended for two games for his cross-check on Vegas Golden Knights skipper Mark Stone.

Benn lunged in on Stone in Tuesday's 4-0 loss, a defeat that left the Stars in a 3-0 hole in the Western Conference finals.

The suspension was announced on Wednesday by the NHL Department of Player Safety.

Benn will now be forced to sit out Game 4, which takes place on Thursday, and should the Stars win to extend the series, Saturday's Game 5 in Las Vegas.

If the Golden Knights complete the sweep, Benn will have to sit out next season's opener.

In Game 3, Benn received a five-minute major penalty and game misconduct for his hit on Stone less than two minutes in, with the Stars already trailing 1-0.

After Benn and Stone collided, the latter fell to the ice, landing on his back. Benn then dove downward onto Stone and cross-checked his head and neck area.

In a video announcing the suspension, the league determined that Benn intentionally decided to cross-check Stone while he was vulnerable.

"This is simply an unnecessarily dangerous decision by Benn, and it is delivered with sufficient intent and force to merit supplemental discipline," the league said.

This is the first time Benn has been suspended in his 14-year NHL career.

Benn, who has been Dallas' captain since the start of the 2013-14 season, has three goals and eight assists in this year's playoffs, including one goal in this series.

Dallas Stars coach Peter DeBoer was thrilled with his team's efforts after Monday's 5-2 victory saw them sweep their two-game road series against the Seattle Kraken.

It took less than six minutes for the Stars to jump ahead by two, with Evgenii Dadonov's early opener followed shortly after by Jamie Benn's power-play goal.

The power-play unit consisting of Benn, Joe Pavelski and Jason Robertson were dynamic, as Pavelski and Robertson assisted Benn's goal, before Benn turned provider for Pavelski early in the second period, and Benn nabbed another assist when he set up Robertson for the third power-play goal of the night to seal things.

Stars center Wyatt Johnson – who assisted the opener and scored his side's fourth goal – highlighted the impact of getting such incredible production from their power-plays.

"It's huge," he said. "Especially when you're on the road – just getting like three goals on the power play, it's always, always a big help."

Coach DeBoer called it "an important four points" as the Stars hold onto a three-point buffer atop the Central division, and sit one point behind the Vegas Golden Knights in the race for the top seed in the Western Conference.

"You look at the standings and we're in a fight for first in the division, first in the conference," he said. "[Seattle are] in a battle for playoff positioning. 

"They've been playing great all year, so this was a real test for us coming in here for two games and I thought our group really responded."

On the other side, the Kraken blew a golden opportunity to establish themselves as one of the West's top sides, getting leapfrogged by Dallas, the Minnesota Wild and the Los Angeles Kings during their current three-game losing streak.

"Bottom line, we didn't get job done," Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. "At the end of the day that's what matters.

"We've been a group that's been able to turn the page and go back to the next job at hand. This group has to be able to do that again."