The Pittsburgh Penguins will start their bid for a Stanley Cup three-peat at home.
Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel banked in goals off Craig Anderson minutes apart in the second period
Art Shell Jersey , Casey DeSmith stopped 34 shots and the Penguins beat the Ottawa Senators 4-0 to clinch second place in the Metropolitan Division and home-ice advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.
Phil Kessel got his 34th goal of the season and Patric Hornqvist pushed his career-high to 29 when he beat Anderson late in the third period for the Penguins, who will host Columbus, New Jersey or Philadelphia next week.
Anderson finished with 19 saves but was beaten twice from behind the goal line in the second period as the Senators lost for the ninth time in 11 games.
Ottawa and Pittsburgh met in the Eastern Conference finals 10 months ago, with the Penguins winning on an overtime goal in Game 7 before going on to beat Nashville for their second straight Cup. The Senators hoped it would be a springboard to becoming perennial contenders. Instead they will miss the postseason for the third time in five years.
DUCKS 5, STARS 3
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) – Jakob Silfverberg had a goal and two assists to help Anaheim keep up its surge toward the postseason with its ninth win in 11 games.
Josh Manson and Andrew Cogliano each had a goal and an assist for the Ducks, who leapfrogged the Los Angeles Kings by one point for third place in the Pacific Division. The playoff-bound rivals have been trading the spot down the stretch, and the race will go down to the last day of the regular season.
Rickard Rakell and Derek Grant also scored for Anaheim before Cogliano got a key breakaway goal with 5:25 to play. Ryan Miller made 23 saves to win his second straight start in place of John Gibson. Miller also earned the 369th victory of his NHL career, tying Tom Barrasso for second among U.S.-born goaltenders.
Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist, and Marc Methot and Radek Faksa also scored for Dallas. Mike McKenna stopped 28 shots in his second appearance of the season.
LIGHTNING 7
Spencer Ware Jersey , SABRES 5
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Nikita Kucherov became the second player in the NHL to reach 100 points this season, and Tampa Bay took a two-point lead for the Eastern Conference and Atlantic Divisiion lead.
Kucherov scored in the first period and got his 100th point assisting on Dan Girardi’s goal 1:04 into the second that put the Lightning up 4-2. Edmonton’s Connor McDavid tops the league with 106 points. According to the NHL, this is the first season since 2009-10 with multiple 100-point players.
The Lightning got two goals from Anthony Cirelli, while Yanni Gourde, Brayden Point and Victor Hedman also scored. Alex Killorn had three assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 27 shots.
Casey Mittelstadt and Alexander Nylander each got his first NHL goal for the last-place Sabres. Jason Pominville, Jordan Nolan and Kyle Okposo also scored for Buffalo, and Chad Johnson had 27 saves.
BLUES 4, BLACKHAWKS 1
CHICAGO (AP) – Patrik Berglund scored three times, including a tiebreaking rebound goal in the third period
Kurt Coleman Jersey , and St. Louis moved into position for the last Western Conference wild card.
Carter Hutton made 19 saves as St. Louis stopped a three-game slide. Jaden Schwartz also scored in the third after an ugly turnover by the Blackhawks.
The Blues (44-31-6) moved one point ahead of the idle Avalanche (42-30-9) heading into their finale in Colorado on Saturday night. St. Louis has won three of four against Colorado this season.
Erik Gustafsson scored for Chicago, and Jean-Francois Berube made 31 saves. The last-place Blackhawks (33-38-10) finished with an 18-18-5 record at home.
The Washington Capitals have re-signed John Carlson to a $64 million, eight-year contract that allows the Stanley Cup champions to keep the do-it-all defenseman.
Carlson will count $8 million against the salary cap through the 2026-27 season. General manager Brian MacLellan announced the deal Sunday.
”John has been an exceptional and consistent player for our franchise and has blossomed into being one of the top defensemen in the NHL,” MacLellan said. ”Defenseman like John are a rare commodity in our League and, at 28 years of age, we feel he is just entering his prime. As a right-handed defenseman, John plays in all key situations and has contributed greatly to our team’s success on the special teams. We are pleased for both parties to have come to an agreement.”
That’s not necessary for the 28-year-old who has made the Washington area his home and wanted to stay if there was a fit. The Capitals got the cap space necessary to re-sign Carlson by trading veteran defenseman Brooks Orpik and backup goaltender Philipp Grubauer on Friday night at the NHL draft.
Carlson outperformed his last deal that paid him just under $4 million a season and was at his best in a contract year. He led all defensemen with 68 points in the regular season and 20 in the playoffs to help Washington win the Metropolitan Division and then the Stanley Cup.
The contract makes Carlson the second-highest-paid player on the Capitals behind Alex Ovechkin.
Carlson averaged about 25 minutes a game all season, stepping up early when top-pairing defenseman Matt Niskanen missed time with injury and playing an important role on the power play and penalty kill on the Cup run.
”His value is immense,” goaltender Braden Holtby said. ”You can see that, how much he meant to our team in this run. As far as growth
Cris Carter Jersey , I think he’s grown steadily but I think he’s been pretty good for a long time. He’s been really good for a long time. I think this year it just showed through a bit more because we just forced him to play more.”
Carlson has been a mainstay on the Capitals’ blue line since 2010-11. The 2008 first-round pick has 333 points in 608 regular-season games and 55 points in 100 playoff games.
”I’ve always thought he was one of the better defensemen that I’ve ever played with,” winger T.J. Oshie said. ”This year, he elevated that quite a bit. In my eyes, he’s got to be a top-three or top-five defenseman in the league. You see what he does- he doesn’t do a lot of things that are really flashy, so maybe he doesn’t get the highlight-reel things that other guys do, but defensively, he rarely ever gets beat.”
Re-signing Carlson was just the first move on MacLellan’s summer checklist. He’s attempting to re-sign trade-deadline pickup Michal Kempny before Carlson’s defense partner can become an unrestricted free agent July 1, and he needs to negotiate new contracts for restricted free agent forwards Tom Wilson and Devante Smith-Pelly.
”We’re trying to sign Kempny,” MacLellan said Friday. ”We’re trying to sign Wilson as an RFA and then make some decisions after that.”
There’s also the matter of replacing Barry Trotz as coach after he resigned and joined the New York Islanders. Associate coach Todd Reirden, who was a finalist for the Flames’ head job two years ago
James Develin Jersey , is the heavy front-runner, though MacLellan wanted to sit down and formally interview him this week first.
”I think you still need to go through an interview process and ask the right questions,” MacLellan said. ”I just want to clarify on what he’s thinking system-wise and how he’s going to handle certain players.”
It helps his case that Reirden coached the defenseman and had a hand in the development of Carlson, Niskanen, Kempny and Dmitry Orlov.
”The players all know him, they’re comfortable with him,” MacLellan said. ”He’ll have a good feel for personalities, how to motivate people and so forth.”
—
Authentic Womens Tremaine Edmunds Jersey 