NHL roundup: Fast start leads Islanders past Capitals

Anthony Beauvillier scored twice, Josh Bailey had three assists and the New York Islanders kept Alex Ovechkin stuck at 698 career goals in beating the Washington Capitals 5-3 on Monday night in Washington.

The Islanders jumped out to a 5-1 lead and held on to hand the Capitals a second consecutive regulation loss at home. Washington also lost center Evgeny Kuznetsov to a scary-looking upper-body injury when he was crunched into the boards in the second period.

Leo Komarov, Devon Toews and Jordan Eberle also scored, chasing Washington rookie goaltender Ilya Samsonov after he allowed five goals on 20 shots. Braden Holtby, who got yanked after allowing seven goals on 25 shots behind a similarly weak defensive performance Saturday against Philadelphia, stopped all 12 shots he faced in relief.

Thomas Greiss made 25 saves to pick up his 16th victory of the season for New York. Barry Trotz improved to 4-0 in Washington as Islanders coach since leading the Capitals to the Stanley Cup in 2018.

John Carlson, Lars Eller and T.J. Oshie scored for the Capitals.

Lightning 2, Blue Jackets 1 (OT): In Columbus, Ohio, Nikita Kucherov scored his second goal of the game 31 seconds into overtime to give Tampa Bay its seventh straight win.

Columbus’ Zach Weresnki turned the puck over behind his own net and Victor Hedman fed it out to Kucherov, who beat Elvis Merzlikins for his 27th. The Lightning won the first meeting of the teams since the Blue Jackets swept Tampa Bay in the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, giving Columbus its first-ever postseason series victory.

Former Blue Jackets backup Curtis McElhinney, starting ahead of Andrei Vasilevskiy on the first night of a back-to-back, had 31 saves to extend the Lightning’s point streak to nine games (8-0-1). They are 19-2-1 in the last 22 games.

Oliver Bjorkstrand scored for Columbus, and Merzlikins finished with 28 saves.

Flyers 4, Panthers 1: In Philadelphia, James van Riemsdyk had a goal and assist, Carter Hart stopped 30 shots in his return from injury and Philadelphia beat Florida.

Travis Sanheim, Ivan Provorov and Claude Giroux also had goals for Philadelphia, which is 6-1-1 in the last eight. The Flyers improved to 19-5-4 at home.

MacKenzie Weegar scored for Florida, which has lost four straight.

Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who began his NHL career with the Flyers in 2010, had 30 saves.

Coyotes 3, Canadiens 2: In Montreal, Jakob Chychrun scored a tiebreaking power-play goal with a minute left, lifting Arizona past Montreal.

Derek Stepan and Taylor Hall also scored for the Coyotes, who scored three goals after going down 2-0 early. Antti Raanta made 26 saves.

Jake Evans and Brendan Gallagher scored for the Canadiens, who had won three in a row. Carey Price stopped 31 shots.

Flames 6, Sharks 2: In San Jose, California, Milan Lucic and Tobias Rieder scored in a span of 34 seconds early in the first period, Matthew Tkachuk added a highlight-reel tally in the third, and Calgary beat San Jose.

Zac Rinaldo, Mark Jankowski nd Mikael Backlund aalso scored to give the Flames back-to-back wins following a three-game losing streak thanks to some unlikely scorers.

Calgary got goals from all three fourth-liners in Rieder, Rinaldo and Jankowski, who entered the game with seven goals in 98 games.

But the prettiest of all came from Tkachuk, who played the puck between his legs before beating Aaron Dell on a power-play goal that made it 5-2.

David Rittich made 34 saves for the Flames.

Canucks 6, Predators 2: In Vancouver, British Columbia, Jacob Markstrom stopped 36 shots, and Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller each had a goal and an assist to lead Vancouver past Nashville.

Zack MacEwen, Brandon Sutter, Jordie Benn and Jake Virtanen also scored on a night Vancouvber retired the numbers of former stars Daniel and Henrik Sedin.

Quinn Hughes had three assists to take over the lead in the rookie scoring race with 44 points as the Canucks ended a four-game losing streak.

Craig Smith and Mikael Granlund scored for the Predators. Pekka Rinne lasted just 20:58, giving up four goals on 17 shots in his first appearance in four games. Juuse Saros stopped 13 of 15 shots the rest of the way.