Nathan MacKinnon scored two goals and added an assist for the Colorado Avalanche, who finished off the host Los Angeles Kings with a 5-1 victory Sunday to sweep the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series.
MacKinnon, who led the NHL with 53 goals in the regular season, got his first goals of the postseason. Cale Makar, Nicolas Roy and Devon Toews also scored for the Avalanche, while Gabriel Landeskog added two assists. Scott Wedgewood made 24 saves for the Avalanche, who will advance to play the winner of the Dallas Stars-Minnesota Wild series that’s tied 2-2.
Joel Edmundson registered his first goal of the series for the Kings, with assists coming from Adrian Kempe and Alex Laferriere. Anton Forsberg stopped 27 of 31 shots. With their season on the brink, the Kings pulled Forsberg with 5:48 remaining. MacKinnon finished the scoring 20 seconds later.
The loss was the final game for Kings captain Anze Kopitar, who previously announced his plans to retire after this season. As the game neared its end, Kings fans chanted their thanks to Kopitar, who played 20 seasons for Los Angeles and led the franchise to two Stanley Cups.
Ducks 4, Oilers 3 (OT)
Ryan Poehling scored the winning goal to give the host Anaheim an overtime victory over Edmonton and put the Ducks one win away from advancing in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Cutter Gauthier, Mikael Granlund and Jeffery Viel also scored for Anaheim in the comeback victory that has it up 3-1 in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series. Defensemen John Carlson and Jackson Lacombe each had two assists and Lukas Dostal made 24 saves.
The Oilers’ Evan Bouchard notched a goal and an assist, Kasperi Kapanen and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each scored a goal, while Connor McDavid collected two assists, his 50th multi-point performance in 100 career playoff games. Tristan Jarry stopped 34 shots in his first start of this year’s playoffs.
Lightning 3, Canadiens 2
Brandon Hagel scored his second goal of the game with 4:53 remaining in the third period to lift Tampa Bay to a win over the Canadiens in Montreal.
The Lightning rallied from a 2-0 second-period deficit to even their Eastern Conference first-round series at two games apiece. Jake Guentzel had a goal and an assist, Kucherov and J.J. Moser each had two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 16 saves for the Lightning.
Zachary Bolduc and Cole Caufield scored for the Canadiens and Jakob Dobes made 17 saves.
Sabres 6, Bruins 1
Visiting Buffalo ripped off a four-goal first period and never looked back en route to a Game 4 win over Boston and a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series.
Peyton Krebs, Josh Doan, Bowen Byram and Alex Tuch all notched a goal and an assist, while Zach Benson and Beck Malenstyn also scored for the Sabres, who rang up a 3-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game. Alex Lyon made 23 saves and held a shutout until Boston’s lone goal by Sean Kuraly with 40 seconds left in the third.
The Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman allowed six goals on 29 shots before Joonas Korpisalo entered in relief for the final 13:19.
–Field Level Media
