Jeff Skinner scored four goals and had an assist in a 5-3 win for the visiting Buffalo Sabres over the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday.
Tage Thompson also scored and Craig Anderson made 29 saves for the Sabres, who snapped a three-game losing streak.
Skinner completed the hat trick on a delayed penalty at 8:16 of the third period to break a 3-3 tie when the puck went in off his skate as he broke toward the net. He scooped up a loose puck in front of Montreal’s goal and scored his fourth of the game and 20th of the season to make it 5-3 at 18:14.
Mike Hoffman, Jeff Petry and Joel Armia scored for the Canadiens, who are 0-8-2 in their past 10 games and winless in three games under interim coach Martin St. Louis. Sam Montembeault, making his second start in as many days, made 27 saves.
Penguins 4, Devils 2
Brian Boyle scored the game-winning goal against one of his former teams early in the third period as visiting Pittsburgh moved into first place in the Metropolitan Division by beating New Jersey in Newark, N.J.
Boyle, who played for the Devils from 2017-2019, put back the rebound of a shot by Mike Matheson to snap a tie 6:58 into the third. Matheson, Bryan Rust and Jake Guentzel collected an empty-netter as the Penguins moved one point ahead of the idle Carolina Hurricanes in the Metropolitan. Sidney Crosby had two assists and remained one goal shy of 500 goals for his career.
Jack Hughes, who missed the previous three games while in COVID-19 protocol, scored in the second and Nico Hischier tied the game in the third for the Devils, who had a two-game winning streak snapped.
Senators 4, Capitals 1
Anton Forsberg made 33 saves and Connor Brown and Brady Tkachuk each had a goal and an assist to lead visiting Ottawa past Washington.
Alex Formenton had a short-handed goal and Adam Gaudette also scored for Ottawa, which snapped a 10-game losing streak to Washington dating to a 3-0 victory Jan. 24, 2017. Chris Tierney added two assists.
Nicklas Backstrom scored for Washington, which suffered its fifth consecutive home regulation loss. Ilya Samsonov finished with 22 saves.
Avalanche 4, Stars 0
Gabriel Landeskog had two goals, Darcy Kuemper stopped 23 shots for his second shutout of the season and 22nd of his career, and visiting Colorado beat Dallas.
Nazem Kadri and Nicolas Aube-Kubel also scored and Cale Makar had two assists for the Avalanche. Colorado is 17-0-2 since its last regulation loss, Dec. 16 at Nashville.
Braden Holtby made 26 saves for the Stars, who had their two-game winning streak snapped.
(Field Level Media)
