BOSTON (AP) — Brad Marchand and Tyler Bertuzzi had power play goals and the Boston Bruins broke the NHL points record with a 5-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night in their regular-season home finale.
Under chants of “We want the Cup!” the Bruins’ won their seventh straight to push their points total to 133, one more than the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens. Those Canadiens played in an era with regulation ties, with the Bruins getting 11 points this season for overtime and shootout victories.
Tomas Nosek, Garnet Hathaway and Jake DeBrusk also scored for Boston in win No. 64.
A night after reaching 60 goals in a season for the first time, David Pastrnak posted his 50th and 51st assists. Linus Ullmark finished with 19 saves, and left the game with just over nine minutes left with an undisclosed issue.
Nick Jensen and Tom Wilson scored for the Capitals. Charlie Lindgren had 33 saves, including a one-handed, gloveless save on Pastrnak early in the third period.
HURRICANES 4, RED WINGS 1
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Stefan Noesen and Jordan Martinook scored early and Carolina maintained its hold on first place in the Metropolitan Division with one game remaining in the regular season.
Brent Burns and Jesperi Kotkaniemi also scored and Antti Raanta made 20 saves as the Hurricanes shed a slump that included the team’s only three-game stretch without a point this season.
Carolina has 111 points, one more than the New Jersey Devils. With the win, the Hurricanes clinched a home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. A victory Thursday night at Florida would give the Hurricanes a division title for the third season in a row.
Robert Hagg scored for the Red Wings, who lost their fourth straight game. Former Carolina goalie Alex Nedeljkovic made 25 saves for Detroit.
DEVILS 6, SABRES 2
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Tomas Tatar had two goals and an assist and New Jersey clinched home ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs and ended Buffalo’s postseason hopes.
Jack Hughes scored a late empty-net goal for his 97th point this season, breaking the franchise record of 96 set by Patrik Elias in 2000-2001.
Jesper Boqvist, Jonas Siegenthaler and Miles Wood also scored as the Devils got big games from their role players in tying their franchise record with their 51st win. Vitek Vanecek made 36 saves in handing the Buffalo only its second regulation loss (7-2-1) in 10 games.
Jeff Skinner and Mattias Samuelsson scored for the Sabres, whose late run wasn’t enough to earn the franchise its first playoff berth since 2011. The 12-year run is the NHL’s current longest postseason drought. Emerging 21-year-old star Devon Levi made 24 saves in losing for the second time in six starts.
MAPLE LEAFS 4, LIGHTNING 3
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Minor league call-up Joseph Woll made 45 saves, William Nylander had a goal and two assists, and Toronto beat Tampa Bay in a preview of an opening round playoff series next week.
The Maple Leafs rested forwards Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner, and defenseman Mark Giordano. Matt Onuska from Windsor of the OHL serves as the backup goalie due to salary cap issues.
Toronto also got goals from Luke Schenn, Calle Jarnkrok and Ryan O’Reilly.
Alex Killorn, Nick Perbix and Mikhail Sergachev scored for the Lightning. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 20 shots.
BLACKHAWKS 5, PENGUINS 2
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Buddy Robinson and Andres Athanasiou scored 26 seconds apart in the third period and Chicago dealt Pittsburgh’s playoff chances a significant blow.
Pittsburgh began the night needing wins in its last two games over Chicago and Columbus to extend the longest active playoff streak in major North American professional sports to 17 years.
Instead, Petr Mrazek made 38 saves, Robinson scored just the fourth goal of his nomadic career to give Chicago a late lead and Pittsburgh finds itself on the outside of the playoffs looking in with just one game to go. Connor Murphy, Tyler Johnson and MacKenzie Entwistle also scored for Chicago.
Evgeni Malkin and Danton Heinen scored for Pittsburgh. Tristan Jarry stopped 22 shots for the Penguins, who are usually prepping for the playoffs in the final days of the regular season.
FLYERS 4, BLUE JACKETS 3, OT
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Owen Tippett scored his second goal of the game with 15.5 seconds left in overtime and Philadelphia snapped a seven-game losing streak.
James van Riemsdyk scored his 300th career goal and Joel Farabee added a score for the Flyers. Carter Hart made 28 saves.
Trey Fix-Wolansky, Sean Kuraly and Liam Foudy scored for Columbus, which has lost four in a row and eight of nine. Michael Hutchinson made 35 saves.
The game matched two of the league’s worst clubs. The Blue Jackets entered last in the Eastern Conference and tied with Chicago for fewest points in the NHL. Only six teams in the league had fewer points than Philadelphia.
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