Arvidsson’s breakaway winner lifts Bruins past Capitals for a 12th straight home win
Viktor Arvidsson scored the go-ahead goal on a breakaway 4:28 into the third period and the Boston Bruins beat the Washington Capitals 3-1 on Saturday for their 12th straight home victory.
Pavel Zacha also scored for the Bruins, who have their longest home win streak since a 14-gamer during their 2022-23 season when they set an NHL record with 65 victories. Jeremy Swayman made 22 saves and Elias Lindholm added an empty-netter.
Arvidsson scored the winner by slipping a wrister over goalie Logan Thompson’s left pad after taking a short backhand pass from Casey Mittelstadt.
Aliaksei Protas scored for Washington, which lost its third straight. The teams meet again in Washington on March 14.
It was the Capitals’ first game since trading longtime defenseman John Carlson to Anaheim before Friday’s trade deadline. He was with the team for nearly 17 seasons and it affected the locker room.
The Bruins haven’t lost at TD Garden in 2026; since a 6-2 loss to Montreal on Dec. 23rd.
DEVILS 6, RANGERS 3
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Jack Hughes had a hat trick and an assist, Nico Hischier scored the go-ahead goal, and New Jersey beat New York for its fourth straight win.
Hischier scored a power-play goal at 8:05 of the third — his team-leading 21st — to give the Devils a 4-3 lead before Hughes scored twice, including one into an empty net, for his fourth career hat trick.
Jesper Bratt and Dawson Mercer also scored for the Devils, who are nine points out of a playoff spot. Bratt and Connor Brown had two assists each and Jacob Markstrom made 17 saves.
Will Borgen, Vladislav Gavrikov and Will Cuylle scored for the last-place Rangers, who were coming off a 6-2 home win over Toronto on Thursday. New York is 4-12-3 since winning the Winter Classic over Florida on Jan. 2.
SABRES 3, PREDATORS 2
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Tage Thompson and Jason Zucker scored less than two minutes apart in the second period and Buffalo held on to win its sixth game in a row, beating Nashville.
Josh Doan scored 16 seconds into the third period for a 3-1 lead and Alex Lyon made 23 saves for Buffalo, which played the first of a five-game homestand and has now earned a point in 13 of its last 15 games.
Thompson extended his point streak to a career-best 10 games (six goals, five assists) with his goal with 7:21 to play in the second period. Zucker made it 2-1 with 5:43 to play in the period.
Zachary L’Heureux scored his first goal of the season to give the Predators a 1-0 lead at 1:17 of the second period and Matthew Wood added a power-play goal with less than four minutes to play to pull Nashville within 3-2. Juuse Saros made 21 saves.
With an assist on L’Heureux’s goal, Nashville’s Jonathan Marchessault now has 300 career NHL assists.
The Sabres are now 29-2-0 this season when they have the lead after two periods.
FLYERS 4, PENGUINS 3, SO
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Trevor Zegras scored the only goal of the shootout to help Philadelphia defeat Pittsburgh.
Owen Tippett, Alex Bump and Denver Barkey scored for the Flyers, and Dan Vladar stopped 20 shots.
Tommy Novak, Rickard Rakell and Erik Karlsson scored for the Penguins, and Stuart Skinner stopped 12 shots a day after Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin was suspended for five games. The Penguins were also without captain Sidney Crosby, who is out for a minimum of four weeks because of a lower-body injury.
Tippett scored his 20th goal of the season less than a minute after Novak opened the scoring for the Penguins. It marked Tippett’s fourth consecutive season with at least 20 goals.
Bump scored in his NHL debut to tie the game at 2. With his family in the stands, he scored short side after a no-look pass from Nikita Grebenkin just over a minute after Rackell put the Penguins ahead 2-1 early in the second period.
Karlsson scored a minute later, and Barkley scored midway through the second to even the score at 3.
CANADIENS 4, KINGS 3
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Juraj Slafkovsky scored his second goal 49 seconds before he set up captain Nick Suzuki for the tiebreaker with 4:33 to play, leading Montreal’s rally for a victory over Los Angeles.
Jake Evans also scored and Jakub Dobes made 35 saves for the Canadiens, who salvaged the final stop of their three-game California road trip with a late surge led by their offensive stars.
Shortly after Slafkovsky tied it on Montreal’s only power play, Cole Caufield forced a turnover that went from Slafkovsky to Suzuki for a one-timer that slipped underneath Darcy Kuemper’s arm.
Montreal had its NHL-leading 20th comeback victory one night after making a late rally — and then blowing a lead — in a wild 6-5 loss to Anaheim.
LIGHTNING 5, MAPLE LEAFS 2
TORONTO (AP) — Nikita Kucherov had three assists in a four-goal first period and added another in the third to give him 100 points on the season as Tampa Bay cruised past listless Toronto.
Jake Guentzel and Brandon Hagel, with a goal and an assist each, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Ryan McDonagh and the newly reacquired Corey Perry scored for Tampa Bay, which snapped a four-game slide.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 27 saves. Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli added two assists.
Matias Maccelli and Nick Robertson scored for Toronto. Anthony Stolarz stopped 28 shots.
The Maple Leafs, who started the night eight points back of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot and were booed off the ice, have dropped seven straight since returning from the NHL’s Olympic break.
Tampa Bay tops the East and the Atlantic Division with 82 points, which put them 17 clear of Saturday’s opponent.
Toronto captain Auston Matthews, who hit the post in the third period on a shot that glanced off Vasilevskiy, has now gone 11 games without scoring, and has just one goal in his last 15 games.
MAMMOTH 5, BLUE JACKETS 4, OT
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Logan Cooley scored his second goal of the game at 2:08 of overtime and Utah overcame Columbus’ tying third-period burst to win its third straight victory.
Clayton Keller broke free on the right side in the 3-on-3 overtime, slipping a cross-ice feed through traffic to Cooley.
Utah holds the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference. The Mammoth ended Columbus’ three-game winning streak and left the Blue Jackets two points out of the East’s final wild card.
Michael Carcone had a goal and an assist for Utah. Kevin Stenlund and Dylan Guenther also scored, and Alexander Kerfoot had two assists. Karel Vejmelka made 27 saves.
Damon Severson, Mathieu Olivier, Adam Fantilli and Mason Marchment each had a goal and an assist for Columbus. Kirill Marchenko had two assists to extend his points streak to four games, and Charlie Coyle added two assists to push his streak to five games. Elvis Merzlikins made 18 saves.
Stenlund broke a 2-2 tie three minutes into the third, and Cooley made it 4-2 on a breakaway 1:54 later.
JETS 3, CANUCKS 2
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Josh Morrissey scored 1:49 into overtime to become the highest-scoring defenseman in franchise history, lifting Winnipeg to a victory over NHL-worst Vancouver.
The winning goal by Morrissey, who missed the last five games after being injured while playing for Canada at the Milan Cortina Olympics, gave him 417 career points to surpass Dustin Byfuglien for the Jets record. He tied the mark with an assist on Gabriel Vilardi’s tying goal.
Mark Scheifele also scored in regulation and had two assists and Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves for the Jets, who extended their points streak to six games.
Linus Karlsson had a goal and an assist and Liam Ohgren also scored for the Canucks, who have lost 11 of 13. Kevin Lankinen stopped 32 shots for Vancouver, which beat Chicago on Friday night to end a seven-game skid that started in January.