TORONTO — Nikita Kucherov scored the shootout winner to give the Tampa Bay Lightning a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Monday in Eastern Conference round-robin play.
The teams played 5 minutes of 3-on-3 overtime before going to a shootout because the games for seeding are following regular-season rules.
Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped two of the three Capitals players he faced in the shootout after making 31 saves in regulation and overtime.
Kucherov also scored in regulation. Mitchell Stephens gave the Lightning a 2-0 lead 7:48 into the second. That lead didn’t last the rest of the period.
Richard Panik scored at the 17:24 mark of the second, and Evgeny Kuznetsov, scored with 27.1 seconds left before intermission to tie it.
HURRICANES 4, RANGERS 1
Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov scored three times for the first post-season hat trick in franchise history and Carolina beat New York for a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup qualifier series.
The 20-year-old Svechnikov beat Henrik Lundqvist for the first goal less than 5 minutes into the game. He followed with a power-play one-timer early in the second off a feed from Sami Vatanen, then buried a third at 14:02 of the third off a feed from Sebastian Aho — who assisted on all three of Svechnikov’s goals.
Jordan Martinook also scored for the Hurricanes. Petr Mrazek added 23 saves.
Artemi Panarin scored for the Rangers. Lundqvist finished with 30 saves.
JETS 3, FLAMES 2
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Nikolaj Ehlers scored a power-play goal in the third period, lifting Winnipeg past Calgary as the teams drew even in their qualifying round.
Adam Lowry led the Jets with a goal and an assist in Game 2 of the best-of-five series. Rookie Jansen Harkins also scored for Winnipeg and Jack Roslovic contributed a pair of assists. Vezina Trophy finalist Connor Hellebuyck made 28 saves for the win.
Elias Lindholm and Sam Bennett scored for the Flames. Calgary starter Cam Talbot stopped 23 shots in the loss.
Calgary won Saturday’s opener 4-1.
GOLDEN KNIGHTS 5, STARS 3
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Will Carrier scored the tiebreaker with 5:12 left, Robin Lehner had 24 saves and Vegas beat Dallas in Western Conference round-robin play.
Carrier backhanded a rebounded shot through the legs of Stars goaltender Ben Bishop and the Knights rallied from a 3-1, third-period deficit. Vegas scored three times in 5:02 and added an empty-netter with 21 seconds left.
Chandler Stephenson, Mark Stone, Nate Schmidt and William Karlsson also scored for the Knights.
Before the game, two players from each team knelt in support of Black Lives Matter and other social causes.
Joe Pavelski, Jamie Oleksiak and Corey Perry scored for Dallas, and Bishop had 28 saves.
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The Associated Press
