BOSTON (AP) The Columbus Blue Jackets felt like they were lucky to get a victory in their late-season push for one of the Eastern Conference’s playoff spots.Cam Atkinson scored 2:55 into overtime to lift the Blue Jackets to a 5-4 comeback victory over Boston on Monday night for their eighth straight win
Womens Pavel Buchnevich Jersey , spoiling a splendid NHL debut for Bruins forward Ryan Donato.”We stuck with it and that’s what good teams do,” Atkinson said. ”It wasn’t our prettiest by no means, but we found a way to get two huge points.”Sonny Milano, Boone Jenner, Thomas Vanek and Artemi Panarin also scored for the Blue Jackets. Nick Foligno and Ryan Murray had two assists, and Vanek and Jenner each added one. Joonas Korpisalo stopped 34 shots.Columbus moved into a tie with Philadelphia with 85 points, but the Flyers hold the tiebreaker for third place in the Metropolitan Division and the Blue Jackets hold the first wild card in the East. New Jersey,which has the second wild card, is three points behind.This one, though, may have been the Blue Jackets’ ugliest during the current run.”It just looked like as a whole group we didn’t seem to have our legs,” Columbus coach John Tortorella said. ”The turnovers hurt us, we turned the puck over quite a bit. But give them credit, they just ended up finding a way.”Atkinson cut in on the left wing and fired a wrister past Tuukka Rask for the game-winner.”You see it, there’s no traffic in front of you, but there’s more clear-cut chances,” Rask said of the 3-on-3 overtime format. ”Even that goal there, it looks like he’s going high-stick, but it goes under my hand.”Donato had a goal and two assists for Boston, which moved a point behind idle Tampa Bay for first in the Atlantic. Riley Nash, Brad Marchand and David Krejci also scored for the Bruins, and Rask finished with 20 saves.”It kind of felt like a dream,” Donato said. ”I really didn’t really get too warmed up because I was focused everything else.”The Blue Jackets trailed by two late in the second period before scoring three consecutive goals to take a 4-3 lead.Just 25 seconds after Nash had given the Bruins a 3-1 lead, Milano redirected Ryan Murray’s slap-pass from the right point to pull Columbus within one with just over three minutes remaining in the middle period.Vanek tipped in a shot from the slot, tying it 5:38 into the third, and Panarin put the Blue Jackets ahead off a faceoff with 8:30 left in regulation.However
Vladislav Namestnikov Jersey , Donato slipped a short pass from the right circle to Krejci, who got the tying goal 20 seconds later while falling to one knee.Jenner got Columbus on the scoreboard first when he redirected Vanek’s pass by Rask 4:15 into the game.The Bruins scored three straight goals in the second to take the lead. Marchand tied it with his team-leading 31st of the season when he got the puck at the end of a 2-on-1 break, shifted to his right and tucked it behind Korpisalo 5:41 into the middle period.Donato, a Hobey Baker Finalist after leading Harvard in scoring this season, pushed Boston ahead with a one-timer that slipped inside the near post from the right faceoff circle at 7:28. The leading scorer on the U.S. team at the Pyeongchang Olympics signed a two-year, entry-level contract on Sunday.Nash’s power-play goal increased it to 3-1 as he banged home a rebound from the top of the crease with 3:28 remaining.NOTES: Boston F David Pastrnak got his 70th point on Marchand’s goal, matching his career-high. … Bruins F Rick Nash was a late scratch with an upper-body injury. … The Blue Jackets entered with the league’s second-worst power play and went 0 for 2 against the Bruins. … Local Olympians, including eight from the women’s Gold medal-winning hockey team, were honored during a ceremonial puck drop. … Bruins captain Zdeno Chara missed his third straight with an upper-body injury. … Columbus D Seth Jones missed his second straight with an upper-body injury.UP NEXTBlue Jackets: At the New York Rangers on Tuesday. Columbus won the only other meeting, 3-1 at home on Oct. 13.Bruins: At St. Louis on Thursday in the first of a four-game road trip. LAS VEGAS (AP) It was a great time for Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley to visit the locker room after their latest win.The Golden Knights had just beaten one of the NHL’s Original Six teams, set another record for an expansion team in its inaugural season, and they also leapfrogged the Tampa Bay Lightning for the top spot in the NHL standings with 82 points.Reilly Smith had two goals and an assist to lead Vegas to a 6-3 win over the struggling Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.Article continues below ...”It’s fantastic for us, it’s fantastic for the team, it’s fantastic for the fans – I love it,” Foley said. ”It’s really unbelievable and I wish Reilly would have gotten that last goal for a hat trick, because he deserves it.”Foley admitted when the season started he didn’t think he’d be doing interviews this late in the season, but with his team clearly headed to the playoffs, he didn’t mind fielding questions.”I knew we had a good team,” Foley said. ”When we did the expansion draft, it was a lot of hard work, and we put a lot of planning into it. We had five mock draft sessions in the expansion draft. We knew what we were getting. The result is what we have.”What Vegas has, is a team that improved to 22-4-2 at T-Mobile Arena, matching the 1979-80 Hartford Whalers (22-12-6) for the most home wins by a team in its first season.Since their 3-2 loss in Montreal on Nov. 7, the Golden Knights are 30-10-3 while the Canadiens are 15-21-6.Brad Hunt, Tomas Nosek, Ryan Carpenter
Bobby Ryan Jersey , Nate Schmidt also scored for Vegas, while Jonathan Marchessault had three assists. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 30 shots, including a highlight-reel glove save on Charles Hudon skating in on a breakaway in the third period, to improve to 19-6-2.”We just want to play the same way that’s made us successful and keep going forward and not kind of relax a bit, we just want to stay with it,” Hunt said. ”We still got a lot of work to do. We just take it day by day, we’re not looking too far forward.”Hudon, Nikita Scherbak and Jonathan Drouin scored for Montreal. Antti Niemi started and gave up three goals on six shots before being replaced by Carey Price midway through the first period. Price, who came into the game having lost eight straight road games, finished with 24 saves.Montreal, which fell to 2-5-1 this month, has the league’s worst road record at 8-19-1. The Canadiens have lost 11 of their last 12 away from home and have been outscored 41-16 during the slide.”It’s always tough when you lose,” Scherbak said. ”We’re trying to stick together. We have a great group of guys here, everybody supports each other, and nobody is happy to lose.”Smith got the scoring going with his seventh power-play goal of the season after taking Schmidt’s pass and one-time a laser past Niemi 2:16 into the game.The Golden Knights scored with the man advantage for the 12th time in 13 games, finishing 1 for 2 on the night. Vegas also improved to 24-3-0 when scoring the first goal of the game and their .889 win percentage when recording the opening mark leads the NHL.”First goal has been huge for us this year,” Smith said. ”Our record is pretty outstanding when we score the first one. But it’s teams like that, if you let them stay around, they’re the ones that are going to make you pay. Those leads are huge at the start and they help us out.”Hudon tied it a couple of minutes later, as he skated past Hunt and used a nifty move to beat Fleury.But Hunt made amends for losing Hudon down the boards when he drilled a slap shot from the point to put Vegas ahead. Nosek’s goal made it 3-1 and sent Niemi to the bench.Scherbak got his first goal of the season to cut the lead to 3-2 with 8:13 left in the opening period.Carpenter scored his fifth goal in seven games 3:07 into the second period, and Smith got his second of the game 37 seconds later to make it 5-2.Schmidt got his fifth on a pass from Smith to give Vegas a four-goal lead four minutes into the third.Just 13 seconds into a power play, Drouin fired a slap shot into the back of the net at 8:44 to close the scoring.NOTES: Montreal D Joe Morrow played in his 100th career game, while F Paul Byron played in his 100th consecutive game. … When Price entered the game he tied Patrick Roy for second in team history for most games played by a goalie. … Canadiens C Tomas Plekanec moved into seventh place for the most games played in team history. … Golden Knights defenseman Luca Sbisa is now one point away from 100 for his career.UP NEXTMontreal: At Philadelphia on Tuesday.Vegas: Hosts Anaheim on Monday.