BOSTON — Charlie McAvoy and Riley Nash scored first-period goals, Tuukaa Rask made 19 saves to snap his four-game losing streak and the Boston Bruins hung on for a 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night.
Torey Krug also scored and Brad Marchand assisted on the first two goals for the Bruins, who opened a 3-0 lead to post their fifth win in six games. Boston improved to 13-3 in its last 16 at home against the Lightning.
Steven Stamkos and Andrej Sustr scored for the Lightning, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves. Tampa Bay, which entered the game with the NHL's best record, lost for the third time in four games following a season-high five-game winning streak.
Criticized lately for his uneven play combined with recent solid performances by backup Anton Khudobin, Rask raised his record to just 4-8-2 this season. Khudobin is 7-0-2.
CANADIENS 2, SENATORS 1
MONTREAL (AP) — Carey Price made 25 saves to lead Montreal to its third straight win.
Jonathan Drouin and Phillip Danault scored in the second period for the Canadiens. Price improved to 3-0-0 while allowing just two goals on 100 shots since he returned last week after missing 10 games with a lower body injury.
Mark Stone scored his 14th goal for Ottawa, which has lost seven games in a row for it's longest skid since also going 0-6-1 in 2012.
The Senators have not won since sweeping a pair of games from Colorado in Stockholm, Sweden, on Nov. 10-11.
Ottawa goalie Mike Condon, pressed into service by Montreal when Price missed most of the 2015-16 season with an injury, started against his former team for the first time and finished with 28 saves.
DUCKS 3, BLUES 2
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Antoine Vermette scored twice and John Gibson stopped 37 shots to help Anaheim snap a four-game skid.
Kevin Roy also scored for the Ducks, who jumped out to a 3-0 lead before holding on for the win. Vermette snapped an 11-game scoreless drought with his first multigoal game since Nov. 25, 2015.
Gibson, who was pulled after giving up four goals on 22 shots in a 7-3 loss at Chicago on Monday, improved to 8-9-1.
Kyle Brodziak scored twice in the game's final 3:48 for the Blues, who had won four of their previous five.
AVALANCHE 3, JETS 2
DENVER (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon scored a power-play goal 59 seconds into overtime after he had a goal waved off 30 seconds earlier to lift Colorado past Winnipeg.
Alexander Kerfoot had a goal and an assist and Nikita Zadorov also scored for the Avalanche, who improved to 8-2-1 at home this season. MacKinnon also had an assist and finished November with 20 points — five goals and 15 assists — in 12 games.
Semyon Varlamov stopped 31 shots in his first game since Nov. 18 because of an illness.
Bryan Little and Josh Morrissey scored for the Jets, and Connor Hellebuyck made 23 saves. Winnipeg is 7-2-1 in its last 10 games.
The Associated Press