Thursdays National Hockey League Capsules
OTTAWA 5, MONTREAL 4
OTTAWA Jason Spezza scored goals 52 seconds apart late in the first period and Daniel Alfredsson added a goal and an assist in the Ottawa Senators 5-4 victory over the Montreal Canadiens.
Nick Foligno and Jarkko Ruutu also scored for Ottawa, which has won three in a row and seven of eight. Brian Elliott stopped 28 shots and set an Ottawa rookie record with his seventh straight victory.
Montreal, which got a pair from Guillaume Latendresse and singles from Alex Tanguay and Tom Kostopoulos, lost its fourth in a row and remains tied with Carolina for seventh place in a tight race for the final Eastern Conference playoff spots.
The Canadiens fell to 1-2-2 since general manager Bob Gainey took over behind the bench after firing Guy Carbonneau on March 9.
EDMONTON 8, COLORADO 1
DENVER Sam Gagner had three goals and an assist to help the Edmonton Oilers beat the Colorado Avalanche, 8-1.
Ethan Moreau, Shawn Horcoff, Fernando Pisani, Ales Kotalik and Sheldon Souray also scored and Dwayne Roloson, making his franchise-record 26th straight start, made 16 saves in the third period and finished with 26.
Cody McLeod scored for Colorado.
VANCOUVER 3, ST. LOUIS 0
VANCOUVER, British Columbia Roberto Luongo made 30 saves for his first shutout in four months, and the Vancouver Canucks extended their franchise-record home winning streak to 11 games with a 3-0 victory over St. Louis.
After Vancouver was outshot badly through the first half of the game, Alex Burrows opened the scoring with 5:06 left in the second period. Mason Raymond and Henrik Sedin added goals 1:56 apart midway through the third to help the Canucks leapfrog Chicago for fourth place in the Western Conference.
Vancouver, 16-3-1 since ending a nine-game home losing streak Feb. 2, also trails Calgary for the Northwest Division lead by just three points.
FLORIDA 3, TORONTO 1
SUNRISE, Florida Stephen Weiss had a shorthanded goal and an assist, and Tomas Vokoun made 37 saves in the Florida Panthers 3-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Richard Zednik and Ville Peltonen also scored, and David Booth had two assists to help the Panthers end a four-game losing streak and complete a season sweep of Toronto. The Panthers hadnt swept Toronto since 1995-96, when they only faced each other twice.
Mikhail Grabovski scored for Toronto.
LOS ANGELES 3, BOSTON 2 (OT)
BOSTON Dustin Brown scored with 34 seconds left in overtime to give the Los Angeles Kings a 3-2 come-from-behind win over the Boston Bruins.
Brown converted a rebound of Sean ODonnells shot for his 24th goal, capping a comeback from a 2-0 deficit midway through the third period.
Boston got goals from Matt Hunwick in the first period and Mark Recchi in the second as it attempted to clinch a playoff berth with a win.
But Michal Handzus scored on a power play for Los Angeles with 10:10 left in the third period, and rookie defenseman Drew Doughty tied it with 1:36 remaining in regulation.
WASHINGTON 5, TAMPA BAY 2
TAMPA, Florida Alex Ovechkin scored his NHL-leading 50th goal to become Washingtons first three-time 50-goal scorer, and defenseman Mike Green had two goals in the Capitals 5-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Ovechkin, who also had two assists, opened the scoring at 7:43 of the first period.
The 23-year-old Russian star took a pass from Nicklas Backstrom and carried the puck up the right side. Ovechkin deked Tampa Bays Matt Pettinger out of position and snapped a wrist shot from the right circle past rookie goalie Mike McKenna.
Ovechkin has 213 goals in 315 career regular-season games. He had 52 goals as a rookie in 2005-06, 46 in 2006-07 and 65 last season.
ANAHEIM 3, PHOENIX 2 (OT)
GLENDALE, Arizona Bobby Ryan knocked in the deciding goal in a shootout and the Anaheim Ducks stayed in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race with a 3-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes.
Todd Merchant had a pair of primary assists for the Ducks, who climbed into a tie with idle Dallas and Minnesota for ninth place with 74 points. The top eight teams in the conference will make the playoffs.
Anaheim, coming off a 4-3 overtime victory at home over Nashville on Wednesday night, took a 2-1 lead when Phoenixs Kyle Turris deflected the puck into his own net with 7:01 to play. The Coyotes tied it on Matthew Lombardis goal with 2:31 left in regulation.
SAN JOSE 3, NASHVILLE 2 (SO)
SAN JOSE, California Jonathan Cheechoo scored the winning shootout goal with a deft backhand, and Evgeni Nabokov made 25 saves in the San Jose Sharks 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators.
Rob Blake and Milan Michalek scored early goals for the Sharks (46-14-10), who moved one point behind NHL-leading Detroit (47-15-9) with just their fourth victory in 10 games.
Joe Pavelski, whose giveaway resulted in Nashvilles second goal, also beat rookie goalie Pekka Rinne in the shootout before Cheechoo got San Joses shootout winner for the second straight home game.
Joel Ward and Vernon Fiddler scored first-period goals for the Predators, who finished a key four-game West Coast trip with six points, solidifying their position in the playoff chase.