TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Brandon Hagel scored two goals to reach 25 for the season and surpass Nikita Kucherov for the team lead as the Tampa Bay Lightning continued their surge with a 4-1 win over the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night.
Anthony Cirelli and Jake Guentzel each had a goal and an assist, and Kucherov had two assists to reach 48. Kucherov has 72 points, tied for third in the league with San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini, who was held scoreless.
Tampa Bay has a 14-game point streak and has won two straight since its one loss in that span, a 3-2 shootout defeat at St. Louis last Friday. The Lightning (31-13-4), who haven’t lost in regulation since Dec. 18, matched Carolina atop the Eastern Conference with 66 points.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves for Tampa Bay.
Tyler Toffoli scored for the Sharks, who concluded their East Coast trip at 2-2. San Jose returns home for one game on Friday before a five-game trip with the first three in Western Canada.
Toffoli scored with 5:23 left in the first period, but Hagel tied it 37 seconds later with his 24th goal. He converted a precise feed from Cirelli to beat Yaroslav Askarov.
Cirelli scored early in the second period and Guentzel’s goal 1:28 later made it 3-1. After a long scoreless stretch, Hagel converted an empty-netter.
Askarov stopped 16 shots.
SENATORS 4, BLUE JACKETS 1
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Tyler Kleven and Tim Stutzle both scored in the first period, and Ottawa beat Columbus, snapping its four-game winning streak.
Ridly Greig had a goal and assist, Thomas Chabot added two assists, and Stutzle also had an assist. James Reimer made 21 saves in his first win for the Senators, who had lost two straight. He signed with the team as a free agent on Jan. 12.
Sean Monahan scored for the Blue Jackets. Elvis Merzlikins stopped five shots for Columbus in 20 minutes before leaving the game with an illness. He was replaced in the second period by Jet Greaves, who stopped 12 shots.
Kleven put Ottawa ahead 1-0 at 3:34 of the first period, beating Merzlikins from the left circle on the Senators’ second shot of the game.
Monahan pulled Columbus even at 7:46 with his first goal in seven games, but Stutzle put Ottawa back in front 2:29 later.
After a scoreless second period, Greig gave Ottawa an insurance goal off the rush at 6:49 of the third. Brady Tkachuk added an empty-netter with 3:06 remaining.
CANADIENS 4, WILD 3
MONTREAL (AP) — Cole Caufield scored the winner with 15 seconds remaining to lift Montreal to a win over Minnesota.
Caufield took a pass from Nick Suzuki and fired a shot from the top of the right circle for his 25th of the season.
Phillip Danault — with his first of the season — Alexandre Carrier and Lane Hutson also scored for Montreal.
Rookie winger Ivan Demidov provided two assists and Jakub Dobes made 16 saves.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored twice and Brock Faber also scored for Minnesota, which beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-3 on Monday. Jesper Wallstedt stopped 29 shots.
STARS 6, BRUINS 2
DALLAS (AP) — Jason Robertson scored two goals, Justin Hryckowian had a goal and two assists, and Dallas ended a three-game skid while snapping Boston's six-game winning streak.
Wyatt Johnston, Mavrik Bourque and Esa Lindell also scored for the Stars, who had just three goals in their previous three games. Miro Heiskanen had three assists and Jake Oettinger had 16 saves.
The Bruins trailed 6-0 when Morgan Geekie scored on the power play to end Oettinger’s shutout bid with 7:49 to play. Geekie ended a personal 12-game goal-scoring drought when he tipped in David Pastrnak’s shot.
Fraser Minten also scored for Boston while Jeremy Swayman made 28 saves before he was lifted in favor of Joonas Korpisalo, who had three stops.
The Stars played without leading scorer Mikko Rantanen (19 goals, 44 assists), who was out with an illness.
Johnston’s goal with 3:52 left in the first was his NHL-leading 16th power-play goal this season. Bourque’s first-period goal also came on the power play.
Johnston has six goals and six assists over the past 12 games.
Robertson scored his 28th and 29th goals of the season early in the third period.
SABRES 5, PREDATORS 3
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Konsta Helenius scored his first NHL goal, assisted on two others, and Buffalo beat Nashville.
Noah Ostlund scored twice, Tage Thompson and Peyton Krebs also scored and Alex Lyon made 32 saves for the Sabres, 3-1-1 in their last five games.
Ryan O’Reilly scored twice and added an assist, Filip Forsberg had a goal and two assists, and Juuse Saros and Justus Annunen combined to make 27 saves for the Predators, losers of two straight. Nashville had not lost consecutive games since a three-game skid in late November.
Ostlund scored the first goal of the game at 8:11 of the opening period.
Saros stopped Helenius’ shot from the left side and Ostlund crept in from the right and poked in the rebound from just outside the crease.
Ostlund struck again at 11:45 of the first with Helenius assisting on that goal as well.
Helenius scored at 17:24 of the first, skating through the slot and snapping a wrist shot high to Saros’ glove side. The 19-year-old Finn made his NHL debut in Monday night’s loss at Carolina.
JETS 3, BLUES 1
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Mark Scheifele had two goals and an assist to lead Winnipeg to a victory over St. Louis.
Josh Morrissey added a goal and two assists as Winnipeg scored three goals on 16 shots. Eric Comrie made 22 saves for Winnipeg (20-23-6), which won for the fifth time in seven games.
Jordan Kyrou scored for St. Louis. Joel Hofer stopped 13 of 15 shots for St. Louis (19-23-8), which lost its second straight and for the fifth time in seven games.
The Jets took advantage of a four-minute high-sticking penalty to the Blues’ Nathan Walker, who clipped Winnipeg defenseman Isaak Phillips, scoring twice in a 1:33 span midway through the first period.
First, Morrissey beat Hofer on a slap shot from the blue line with Scheifele and Kyle Connor assisting at 9:52. Then, Scheifele lifted the puck over Hofer from close range, with Morrissey getting the assist, at 11:25.
The Blues had pulled to within 2-1 late in the second. With Vladislav Namestnikov serving a four-minute minor for high-sticking Jonathan Berggren, Kyrou scored past Comrie.
Scheifele put the game away with an empty-net goal with 2:23 left.
KINGS 4, RANGERS 3
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kevin Fiala had a goal and an assist, and Anton Forsberg made 28 saves after taking over for the injured Darcy Kuemper in Los Angeles's victory over slumping New York.
Adrian Kempe, Taylor Ward and Andrei Kuzmenko also scored for the Kings, who snapped a four-game skid with only their second regulation victory in January.
Kuemper allowed two goals on eight shots before abruptly leaving with 38 seconds left in the first period following a collision in the crease with a charging Jonny Brodzinski.
Forsberg played superbly after taking over for Kuemper, a member of Canada’s Olympic roster. Kuemper also missed 2 1/2 weeks last month after taking a hit to the head during a loss at Dallas.
J.T. Miller scored two goals for the Rangers, who are last in the Eastern Conference after losing seven of eight.
Jonathan Quick made 23 saves in his third start and fourth appearance against the Kings, who drafted him in 2005. Quick, who turns 40 years old on Wednesday, won 370 games — 199 more than any other Kings goalie — while backstopping the club to two Stanley Cup championships during his 16 seasons in LA.
Kempe scored 18 seconds after the opening faceoff.
DEVILS 2, OILERS 1
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Arseny Gritsyuk and Cody Glass each had a goal and an assist and New Jersey held on to beat Edmonton.
The Devils, who improved to 17-0-0 when leading after two periods, have won four of their last five outings, including a 2-1 overtime victory on Monday against the host Calgary Flames.
Matthew Savoie scored for the Oilers, who had a two-game winning streak halted — the ninth time this season they have failed to extend a winning streak to three games.
Jake Allen survived a barrage in the third and recorded 21 saves to earn the win in net for New Jersey, while Tristan Jarry made 15 stops in his Oilers’ home debut.
Defenseman Dougie Hamilton, who was a healthy scratch against the Winnipeg Jets on Jan. 10, picked up an assist to extend his points streak to six games, during which he has collected seven points.
The Oilers’ Curtis Lazar skated in his 600th career NHL game against his former team, where he spent portions of three seasons from 2022-25. He has played for seven NHL squads and has 50 goals and 80 assists.
