TORONTO, April 3, 2018 (AP) - William Nylander and Auston Matthews each had two goals and an assist as the playoff-bound Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Buffalo Sabres 5-2 Monday night. Andreas Johnsson also scored as Maple Leafs extended a franchise record with their 48th win and matched the team mark for points (103) set in 2003-04. Backup goalie Curtis McElhinney stopped 32 shots to help Toronto win for the 15th time in the last 17 at home. Matthews extended his point streak to seven games in Toronto's 28th home win of the season. He has five goals and 10 points on his run. Sam Reinhart got his career-high 24th goal for the last-place Sabres, and Jason Pominville also scored. Chad Johnson finished with 31 saves. KINGS 3, AVALANCHE 1 Dustin Brown's short-handed goal helped Los Angeles move back into third place in the Pacific Division with a win over Colorado. Torrey Mitchell and Kyle Clifford also scored for the Kings, who are one point ahead of Anaheim. Jonathan Quick made 27 saves and the Kings won their third consecutive home game. Alexander Kerfoot had a power-play goal and Jonathan Bernier stopped 22 shots for the Avalanche. Colorado leads St. Louis by one point for the second Western Conference wild card, but the Blues have a game in hand. The Avalanche host the Blues on Saturday in the final game of the regular season for both. PANTHERS 3, HURRICANES 2 Alexander Petrovic scored the tiebreaking goal in the third period and Florida snapped a three-game skid. Evgenii Dadonov and MacKenzie Weegar also scored to help the Panthers pull five points behind idle New Jersey for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference. Florida has four games remaining, one more than the Devils. Roberto Luongo stopped 26 shots. Derek Ryan and Trevor van Riemsdyk scored for Carolina, and Scott Darling finished with 32 saves. On the go-ahead goal, Petrovic shot from the boards above the right circle and beat Darling with 7:58 left for his second of the season. WILD 3, STARS 0 The Minnesota Wild made sure the bad news didn't defeat them. Their season-ending road trip sure feels a little lighter now, with a spot in the playoffs secure. Zach Parise scored twice and Devan Dubnyk made 22 saves to blank his original team, pushing the Wild past the Edmonton Oilers 3-0. "I hope it makes them feel good about themselves," coach Bruce Boudreau said. "I thought our defense was good." With 98 points, matching the fourth-most in franchise history, the Wild did their part. Then Los Angeles chipped in with a victory about 2 1/2 hours later over Colorado that took the pressure off Minnesota's last three games, at Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose. The Wild are nearly locked into third place in the Central Division and a first-round matchup with Winnipeg. "I don't know how all this math works out," Boudreau said, before leaving the arena to watch the conclusion of the Avalanche-Kings game at home. "I just wake up in the morning and hope to see an 'X' by the name." Playing for the first time in nearly three years without stalwart defenseman Ryan Suter, the Wild wrapped up their home schedule with a staggering 21-3 shots advantage in the third period. Joel Eriksson Ek added an empty-net goal as the Wild finished 27-6-8 at Xcel Energy Center, the second-best home record in the league. With rookies Nick Seeler and Carson Soucy, in his NHL debut no less, playing key roles on the blue line, the Wild put together a postseason-caliber performance."You need different people to step up and do important things, and that's going to be the case for us," Dubnyk said. "That was a good look." Cam Talbot made 37 saves for the Oilers, who lost their fifth straight game and ensured a sub-80-point finish for the eighth time in the last nine years."The finish line is non-rewarding. You fall behind, you feel like you don't get a break, you miss a net or something like that, it takes a little bit more out of you," coach Todd McLellan said. "We should be more resilient. We're not right now." Parise has been a big part of the push. The Wild are 24-9-7 with him in the lineup, after he missed the first 39 games of the season recovering from back surgery. Playing next to Mikko Koivu and Mikael Granlund has given him a clear boost."As a group, we're meshing really well together," Parise said. The Wild scored the first goal for the first time in seven games, when Parise snagged a bouncing puck at his own blue line that Oilers defenseman Adam Larsson was struggling to control with his skates and broke loose on an unabated path to the net. He snapped a shot though Talbot's pads just 3:33 into the contest.Dubnyk then went to work on his fifth shutout of the season, making some difficult saves, including a denial of NHL points leader Connor McDavid's attempt with his right leg.Parise provided some padding when he swooped into position to knock in a rebound of Jonas Brodin's attempt before the midpoint of the second period. Making the 400th start of his NHL career against the club that drafted him in the first round in 2004, Dubnyk recorded his 133rd win for the Wild since they acquired him in a trade on Jan. 14, 2015. No goalie in the league has played in more games (230) or pitched more shutouts (20) since then.Edmonton won the first two meetings with Minnesota this season, with McDavid registering two goals and two assists, but after the breakthrough in 2016-17 the Oilers have tumbled back down the Western Conference standings. They're 17-23-4 since the Christmas break. Talbot was pulled at Calgary on Saturday night after only 11 1/2 minutes, after allowing three goals on seven shots, but McLellan stuck with him and was rewarded with his highest save total in nine appearances since he stopped 40 shots at Florida on March 17. "We definitely had opportunities to make this a good road trip," said left wing Milan Lucic, "but we didn't do it in Vancouver when we had a real good start the way that we did. We didn't do it in Calgary and once again here." CAPITALS 4, BLUES 2 Nicklas Backstrom started a three-goal second period, Braden Holtby made 34 saves, and Washington won for the seventh time in eight games and 11th in the last 13.Alex Ovechkin got his league-leading 46th goal, and Alex Chiasson and Andre Burakovsky also scored for the Capitals. Holtby won for the fourth time in his last five starts, and improved to 7-0-0 in seven career starts against St. Louis.Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrik Berglund scored for the Blues, who lost their second straight. Jake Allen finished with 30 saves. JETS 6, SENATORS 5 Blake Wheeler scored twice and Winnipeg held off Ottawa. Andrew Copp had a goal and an assist, and Josh Morrissey, Brandon Tanev and Mathieu Perreault also scored for the Jets, who pulled five points behind first-place Nashville in the Central Division with three games remaining. Adam Lowry and Mark Scheifele each had two assists, and Connor Hellebuyck stopped 32 shots. Thomas Chabot and Matt Duchene each scored twice and Christian Wolanin got his first NHL goal for Ottawa, which was playing its final home game of the season. Craig Anderson finished with 34 saves.
