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.

Michael McCarron scored twice and the Nashville Predators scored seven straight goals to extend their point streak to a franchise record-tying 15 games with an 8-2 rout of the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday.

Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg each had a goal and two assists and Ryan McDonagh and Kiefer Sherwood added three assists apiece for the Predators, who improved to 13-0-2 in their last 15 games since their last regulation loss to Dallas on Feb. 15.

Nashville matched a 14-0-1 run from Feb. 19-March 19, 2018.

Juuse Saros stopped 18 shots and is 10-0-2 in his last 12 starts.

League-worst San Jose has lost five straight and is 1-12-2 in its past 15 games.

Rantanen’s big game powers red-hot Avalanche

Mikko Rantanen completed his hat trick with the tiebreaking goal early in the third period and the Colorado Avalanche won their seventh straight game, 4-3 over the St. Louis Blues.

Casey Mittelstadt had the other goal for the Avalanche, who have outscored opponents 31-13 during the seven-game streak, the longest active run in the NHL.

Nathan Walker, Alexey Toropchenko and Brayden Schenn tallied as St. Louis had a four-game winning streak snapped.

Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon picked up his 75th assist of the season to extend his point streak to 16 games (10 goals, 22 assists).

Jarvis leads Hurricanes over Islanders

Seth Jarvis scored twice and the Carolina Hurricanes started fast in a 4-1 win over the floundering New York Islanders.

Trade-deadline acquisition Jake Guentzel had a goal and two assists and Pytor Kochetkov stopped 30 shots to lead Carolina to its fourth straight victory.

The Hurricanes matched a franchise record with their sixth straight road win and pulled within two points of the Rangers for first place in the Metropolitan Division.

The Islanders have been outscored 20-6 during a five-game losing streak as their playoff hopes continue to dim.

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.