Connor Hellebuyck turned aside 25 shots, earning his league-leading eighth shutout of the season as the visiting Winnipeg Jets blanked the Dallas Stars 4-0 on Thursday, tightening their grip on home-ice advantage.
Kyle Connor scored twice in the third period for the first-place Jets, who vaulted six points ahead of the second-place Stars in the Central Division. Winnipeg now needs only a single point — or for Dallas to drop one — to clinch first place in the division and the Western Conference.
Nino Niederreiter and Morgan Barron were the other goal-scorers for Winnipeg, and Josh Morrissey picked up two assists.
Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger made 31 stops.
Capitals 5, Hurricanes 4 (SO)
Pierre-Luc Dubois scored the game’s first goal and then finished it with a shootout tally as Washington defeated visiting Carolina in a matchup between the Metropolitan Division’s top teams.
Dylan Strome, Nic Dowd and Tom Wilson also scored in regulation for the Capitals. Charlie Lindgren made 30 saves. The Hurricanes have lost four in a row since last week’s home victory against the Capitals. But by forcing overtime, Carolina picked up a team point that clinched home-ice advantage for its first-round playoff series with the New Jersey Devils.
Logan Stankoven, Jackson Blake, Jordan Martinook and Seth Jarvis had the goals for Carolina. Brent Burns provided two assists and Frederik Andersen made 24 saves.
Rangers 9, Islanders 2
Rookie Brett Berard had his first career two-goal game for the visiting New York Rangers, who remained mathematically alive in the Eastern Conference wild-card race while all but ending the New York Islanders’ playoff hopes with a win in Elmont, N.Y.
Artemi Panarin added two goals and an assist for the Rangers (37-35-7, 81 points) who snapped a three-game losing streak and moved within six points of the idle Montreal Canadiens for the final wild-card spot with three games to play.
The Rangers kept their “tragic number” for elimination at one while also reducing the tragic number for the Islanders to one, as they sit eight back of Montreal with four games to play.
Blackhawks 5, Bruins 2
Nick Foligno scored twice and Ryan Donato’s 30th goal of the season sparked an early-third-period run of three goals in 1:33 as Chicago won at Boston.
The first three goals for Chicago were scored by former Bruins. Foligno made it 1-1 at 7:55 of the second, Donato made it 2-0 at 3:14 of the second and Tyler Bertuzzi added insurance 1:09 later.
David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie had a goal and an assist apiece for Boston (32-39-9, 73 points), which has lost 12 of its past 14 (2-11-1). Boston’s Jeremy Swayman stopped 16 shots.
Blue Jackets 3, Sabres 2
Columbus scored twice in less than three minutes in the third period to rally to beat visiting Buffalo.
Zach Aston-Reese and Boone Jenner scored the third-period goals and James van Riemsdyk scored in the first for the Blue Jackets. Jet Greaves made 39 saves.
JJ Peterka and Rasmus Dahlin scored and James Reimer made 27 saves for the Sabres, who had their five-game winning streak snapped after leading 2-0 in the first period.
Panthers 4, Red Wings 1
Brad Marchand scored his first goal with Florida in a win over visiting Detroit in Sunrise.
Marchand, after 15-plus seasons with the Boston Bruins, made his Panthers debut on March 28. Evan Rodrigues, Mackie Samoskevich and Aleksander Barkov also scored. For Barkov, it was his 20th goal of the season, giving him 10 straight seasons hitting that mark. Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves in the win, which was No. 915 for coach Paul Maurice, moving him into third place in NHL history.
Alex DeBrincat scored Detroit’s only goal and Cam Talbot made 27 saves for the Red Wings. DeBrincat leads the team with 36 goals.
