NEWARK Ryan Dzingel Jersey , N.J. (AP) As five years of hockey frustration ended for the New Jersey Devils, players embraced, raised their sticks to salute their long-suffering fans and just imagined what the future held.The New Jersey Devils are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2012, knowing they have a shot at the Stanley Cup, like 15 other teams after clinching a postseason berth with a 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night.No tee times this year. No vacation. The real hockey starts next week.”There’s certain moments in your life and certain moments in a season that you want to be able to celebrate,” Devils coach John Hynes said. ”This is one of them. It’s a significant accomplishment for us to be able to get ourselves back into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.”What the Devils did this season was remarkable. They finished last in the Eastern Conference with 28 wins and 70 points.Their win over the Maple Leafs was their 44th of the season and gave them 97 points with a game to go in the regular season. Patrick Maroon did most of the important work against the Leafs, setting up second-period goals by Pavel Zacha and Miles Wood to provide the margin of victory.After that, it was just a matter of holding off the playoff-bound Maple Leafs, who pushed in the third period.Keith Kinkaid, the mainstay in goal since the end of January, made 31 saves as the Devils won their fourth straight and extended their points streak to eight games (7-0-1). He preserved the lead with a stop in close on Auston Matthews with just over seven minutes to playHe called the final 10 minutes stressful and exciting.”The fans were into it,” he said. ”That’s an unreal atmosphere out there. You hear how loud they were. Everyone is battling. Everyone is back-checking. Everyone is doing all the little things and we’re a really hard team to play against when we do that.”When the final horn sounded there was a sense of accomplishment. A cheer went up when the Stanley Cup logo and the Devils’ logo were shown on the overhead scoreboard.Center Travis Zajac skated behind defenseman and captain Andy Greene and hugged him. It’s been a long five years for the only two holdovers from the 2012 team that lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Kings.”We’re a group that doesn’t give up,” Greene said. ”We are relentless. We play for each other. We play hard for each other.”The Devils also earned this spot, going 10-2-1 in its past 13 games.William Nylander scored on a power play in the first period for Toronto to ice his second straight 20-goal season. Frederik Andersen was outstanding, making 37 saves, including saves on breakaways by Taylor Hall and Michael Grabner in the big second period.The loss was only the fourth in 13 games (9-4) for the Maple Leafs Womens Tom Pyatt Jersey , who will face either Boston or Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs.”They are a good team,” Toronto defenseman Jake Gardiner said. ”That’s as close to playoff hockey as we are going to get right now. That was kind of us last year, fighting for a spot to get in. They played hard. They played well. They didn’t give us too much.”New Jersey, which is currently the first wild card in the Eastern Conference, will have to wait for its playoff opponent to be decided.While the Devils had the majority of shots for the first 27-plus minutes, they fell behind 1-0 when Nylander scored from the right circle 12 seconds after Nico Hischier was called for tripping.Zacha didn’t tie the game until 7:55 of the second period. He won a puck along the boards in center ice, worked a give-and-go with Maroon entering the Toronto zone and beat Andersen with a shot from the left circle just under the crossbar.Maroon, who was acquired in a trade deadline deal with Edmonton, did all the work on Wood’s 18th goal. He fended off Nazem Kadri carrying the puck from in front of his bench, all the way behind the net and then came out the other side and found Wood alone in front for a slam dunk.NOTES: Matthews extended his point-scoring streak to eight games with an assist on Nylander’s goal. … The Devils won the season series 2-0-1. … Hall’s nine-game points scoring streak and four-game goals run were snapped. …. There were four penalties in the game.UP NEXTMaple Leafs: Host Montreal on Saturday night in regular-season finale.Devils: End the regular season at Washington on Saturday night.— BOSTON (AP) — Patrice Bergeron celebrated his 1,000th career game with a pair of goals as the Boston Bruins beat the New York Islanders 3-1 on Tuesday night.Bergeron, just the fifth player in Bruins’ history to play 1,000 games with the club, scored early in the second period and added an empty-netter in the final minute.Peter Cehlarik also scored and Tuukka Rask stopped 28 shots for the Bruins, who handed the Metropolitan Division-leading Islanders their first regulation loss in more than three weeks.Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak assisted on both of Bergeron’s goals.Jordan Eberle scored for the Islanders and Robin Lehner finished with 24 saves.CAPITALS 3, CANUCKS 2WASHINGTON (AP) — T.J. Oshie scored as part of a dominant performance Jordan Nolan Jersey Womens , Braden Holtby made 30 saves and stopped a penalty shot, and Washington beat Vancouver in Jay Beagle’s return to his old home arena.Alex Ovechkin assisted on Oshie’s 16th goal of the season to pick up his 1,180th career point and become NHL’s career scoring leader among Russian players. Ovechkin went into the game tied atop that list with former teammate Sergei Fedorov.Holtby made 13 saves and denied Bo Horvat on a penalty shot in a busy second period to help the struggling Capitals pick up two important points. Holtby was run over by Horvat prior to Elias Pettersson’s goal with 7.6 seconds remaining and was attended to by a team athletic trainer before finishing the game.Brett Connolly and Jakub Vrana scored third-period goals for the defending Stanley Cup champions, who had lost eight of their previous nine games.SHARKS 3, JETS 2, OTWINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Joe Pavelski scored a short-handed goal 2:49 into overtime to lead San Jose over Winnipeg.Pavelski’s 29th goal of the season came on a 2-on-1 with Brent Burns after a Winnipeg turnover, giving the Sharks a three-game winning streak to start off a four-game trip.Logan Couture and Marcus Sorensen also scored for San Jose. Kevin Labanc had a pair of assists and Pavelski also had an assist. Martin Jones stopped 25 shots.Blake Wheeler and Mathieu Perreault scored for the Jets, who had their three-game winning streak snapped and their run of seven consecutive victories at home ended. Connor Hellebuyck made 35 saves.HURRICANES 4, PENGUINS 0PITTSBURGH (AP) — Curtis McElhinney stopped 23 shots, Brett Pesce and Jordan Martinook scored from way out, and Michael Ferland and Andrei Svechnikov poured it on late as Carolina began a pivotal five-game trip with a victory over Pittsburgh.McElhinney collected his first shutout of the season and ninth of his 11-year career by stuffing Jared McCann and Jake Guentzel with sprawling saves in the first period and never letting up as the Hurricanes picked up two big points as they try to stay in the mix for their first playoff berth in nearly a decade.Matt Murray made 28 saves for the Penguins but lost for the third time in four starts since the All-Star break. Pittsburgh struggled to generate any consistent offensive pressure against McElhinney while playing without injured star Evgeni Malkin, who missed his third consecutive game with an upper-body injury.GOLDEN KNIGHTS 3, LIGHTNING 2, SOTAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Alex Tuch scored the only goal in a shootout and Vegas halted a four-game losing streak with a victory over Tampa Bay.Vegas got goals from Cody Eakin and Valentin Zykov in regulation. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 24 shots.Brayden Point and Mathieu Joseph scored for the NHL-leading Lightning Zack Smith Jersey , and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 35 saves. Steven Stamkos had two assists to give him 14 points over his last 10 games.KINGS 5, DEVILS 1NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Tyler Toffoli scored twice in 35 seconds early in the third period to spark Los Angeles.Toffoli, who had the overtime winner Monday against the Rangers, helped send the Kings to their third win in four games. Adrian Kempe, Dion Phaneuf and Ilya Kovalchuk also scored for Los Angeles. Jack Campbell made 29 saves and Anze Kopitar had three assists.Pavel Zacha scored for New Jersey, and Keith Kinkaid stopped 20 shots.CANADIENS 4, DUCKS 1MONTREAL (AP) — Brendan Gallagher had two goals and an assist, and Montreal beat slumping Anaheim.Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Phillip Danault also scored for the Canadiens, who improved to 7-1-1 in their last nine games. Jonathan Drouin had three assists. Carey Price made 24 saves for his sixth straight victory — his longest winning streak since the 2016-17 season.Captain Ryan Getzlaf scored for the Ducks, who have lost five in a row. Chad Johnson stopped 28 shots.PREDATORS 5, COYOTES 2NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Craig Smith, Filip Forsberg and Ryan Ellis scored in the second period, and Nashville beat Arizona to snap a three-game skid at home.Pekka Rinne made 24 saves as Nashville avoided being swept by Arizona this season, though the Coyotes did take the series 2-1.Roman Josi scored an empty-net goal with 2:50 left and had two assists Ryan O'Reilly Jersey Womens , Calle Jarnkrok had a goal, and Ellis also had an assist.SABRES 5, WILD 4, SOBUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Sam Reinhart scored the lone shootout goal and Buffalo won for just the third time in nine games.Reinhart also had a goal and an assist in regulation for the Sabres, who led by two in the second period before giving up Zach Parise’s tying goal with 1:37 left in the third. Linus Ullmark stopped 41 shots through overtime in a game Buffalo never trailed.Jack Eichel set up two goals and C.J. Smith also scored. Buffalo’s once anemic power-play unit converted both opportunities on goals from Evan Rodrigues and Rasmus Dahlin.BLACKHAWKS 6, OILERS 2EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Patrick Kane had a goal and an assist, and Chicago scored four goals in less than a three-minute span of the third period.Erik Gustafsson, John Hayden, Dylan Strome, Drake Caggiula and Dominik Kahun also scored for the Blackhawks, who have won five straight. Cam Ward stopped 25 shots.Leon Draisaitl scored both goals for Edmonton, which matched a season-high with its sixth-straight loss. Cam Talbot turned aside 23 of 27 shots before giving way to Mikko Koskinen, who made six saves.BLUE JACKETS 6, AVALANCHE 3DENVER (AP) — Josh Anderson scored the tiebreaking goal with 9:31 remaining Brian Elliott Jersey , Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 27 shots and Columbus snapped a five-game skid by beating Colorado.Pierre-Luc Dubois scored twice for Columbus, including an empty-netter. Oliver Bjorkstrand, Cam Atkinson and Alexander Wennberg also had goals.Nikita Zadorov, Samuel Girard and defensemen Erik Johnson scored for Colorado, which dropped its fourth straight and fell to 3-12-2 since Dec. 21.BLUES 3, PANTHERS 2SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Vince Dunn scored with 3:53 left to cap a third-period rally from a two-goal deficit and lift St. Louis over Florida.Aleksander Barkov put Florida ahead 2-0 with a goal 30 seconds into the final period, but Colton Parayko, Ryan O’Reilly and Dunn brought St. Louis flying back for its third straight win. Dunn beat James Reimer with a shot from the slot.Jordan Binnington stopped 22 shots for St. Louis. Henrik Borgstrom also scored for Florida, and Reimer made 31 saves.