NHL Last Night: Capitals Cruise

Mike Green's NHL-record goals streak for defensemen ended at eight games, but Alexander Ovechkin scored three times to give the Washington Capitals a 4-2 victory over the Florida Panthers on Sunday.

Green fell one short of tying the overall Washington record for consecutive games with a goal, set by Alan Haworth (1985-86) and matched by Mike Gartner (1986-87).

Ovechkin's second goal broke a tie with 2:31 left, and he completed the hat trick with an empty-netter to push his NHL-leading goals total to 41.

Eric Fehr also scored for Washington, extending his goals streak to four games.

Washington is 9-2-2 in its last 13 games and extended its lead over second-place Florida in the Southeast Division to 13 points.

Michael Frolik and Nathan Horton scored for the Florida. The Panthers lost in regulation for only the fourth time since Jan. 1.




Devils 6, Sharks 5

At Newark, New Jersey, David Clarkson scored his second goal of the game on a power play with 3:32 to play and New Jersey completed a sweep of conference leader San Jose.

Brian Gionta, Brian Rolston, Patrik Elias and Jamie Langenbrunner also scored to help the Devils won for the 13th time in 15 games. This latest win came just two days after a 1-0 victory over NHL-leading Boston.

Joe Pavelski, Devin Setoguchi, Jonathan Cheechoo, Patrick Marleau and Rob Blake scored for San Jose, 1-1-3 on its five-game trip.




Avalanche 6, Red Wings 5, SO

At Detroit, Jordan Leopold scored in the fifth round of a shootout, and Andrew Raycroft stopped 40 shots in regulation and overtime and allowed only Henrik Zetterberg's goal in the second round of the tiebreaker as Colorado edged Detroit.

Wojtek Wolski also scored in the shootout to help Colorado end a four-game losing streak. Ian Laperriere had a goal and an assist, and Ruslan Salei, Marek Svatos, Ben Guite and Milan Hejduk also scored in regulation for the Avalanche.

Marian Hossa, who has 33 goals, and Dan Cleary each had two goals, and Jiri Hudler scored for Detroit. Chris Osgood made 23 saves.




Flyers 5, Rangers 2

At New York, Mike Richards' short-handed goal sparked a four-goal second period, and rookie Claude Giroux had a goal and two assists as Philadelphia downed New York.

Richards, who leads the NHL with five short-handed goals this season, became the first NHL player to score three 3-on-5 goals in a career.

Glen Metropolit, Matt Carle and Mike Knuble also scored for the Flyers. Lauri Korpikoski and Nikolai Zherdev scored for New York, 1-5-2 in its last eight.




Hurricanes 3, Sabres 0

At Buffalo, New York, Cam Ward made 36 saves for his third shutout in 10 starts, and Eric Staal had a goal and two assists as Carolina blanked Buffalo.

Chad LaRose and Sergei Samsonov also scored to help the Hurricanes bounce back from a 5-1 home loss to Columbus on Saturday night. Ward has four shutouts overall this season and 10 in his NHL career.




Thrashers 8, Ducks 4

At Anaheim, California, Ilya Kovalchuk scored three goals in 6:51 span of the second period and also had an assist in Atlanta's win over Anaheim.

Rich Peverley, Bryan Little, Colby Armstrong, Colin Stuart and Niclas Havelid also scored, and Kari Lehtonen made 31 saves in Atlanta's first win over Anaheim since December 2003. Teemu Selanne had two goals for Anaheim, and Bobby Ryan and Andrew Ebbett also scored.




Canucks 4, Canadiens 2

At Vancouver, British Columbia, Identical twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin each had a goal and an assist to lead Vancouver past Montreal.

Alex Edler and Ryan Kesler also scored, and Alex Burrows added two assists to help Vancouver jump from ninth to fifth in the tightly packed Western Conference playoff race, one point ahead of Dallas, Columbus and Anaheim.

Roberto Luongo finished with 25 saves for the Canucks, who have won five of six since snapping an eight-game losing skid two weeks earlier.

Saku Koivu and Andrei Kostitsyn scored for the slumping Canadiens, who have lost five of their last six games, and 10 of the last 13.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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