who spent 19 games with the Coyotes in the 2014-15 season, stopped 30 shots for his 200th career win.Antti Raanta, back in net for the Coyotes after a six-game injury absence, finished with 28 saves. Clayton Kel

WASHINGTON (AP) Nicklas Backstrom did so well on faceoffs with an injured hand he even surprised himself.”It’s the playoffs Adidas Austin Czarnik Jersey ,” Backstrom said after the Washington Capitals‘ 4-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night that evened the Eastern Conference final at two games apiece. ”You’ve just got to grind. It felt good on the first couple faceoffs, so I just kept taking them.”Returning from a four-game absence with a right hand injury, Backstrom won six of nine faceoffs and looked more like himself as the night wore on. With Game 5 looming Saturday night at Tampa Bay, Backstrom’s improvement is one of the keys to Washington bouncing back from consecutive home losses.”I should get back to normal,” Backstrom said after playing 18:51 night in his return. ”I feel really good. I don’t know (how normal) exactly. If I didn’t feel good, I wouldn’t play. The doctors wouldn’t let me play, either.”Team doctors cleared Backstrom to play around lunchtime, and by pregame warmups he was drawing an ovation from fans thrilled to see him back in the lineup. The crowd roared when Backstrom won the faceoff on his first shift, and he got back into a rhythm centering the third line.”It was so fun to be back out there,” Backstrom said. ”It’s where everyone wants to be. You want to be on the ice. It’s just too bad we didn’t get the win.”A hard-luck loss included two penalties by fill-in No. 2 center Lars Eller, who has five in the past two games. Coach Barry Trotz didn’t mess with his top two lines, but Backstrom could easily be promoted to skate with Jakub Vrana and T.J. Oshie in Game 5.”We’re going to need him pushing forward, especially now that he has a game under him,” goaltender Braden Holtby said. ”He’ll take on more minutes and a bigger role. You could tell as the game went on he was getting more and more comfortable, so he’s going to be a much-needed asset for us in these next few games, for sure.”Backstrom appears ready to do that. The 30-year-old Swedish center hadn’t played since taking a slap shot from Pittsburgh’s Justin Schultz on May 5, but if it were up to him, he would have been back much sooner.”Nick has been champing at the bit for a while now,” said Trotz Adidas Elias Lindholm Jersey , lauding Backstrom’s game. ”We’ve been holding him back a little bit, but he’s ready to go.”Even on a team featuring Alex Ovechkin, the Capitals have gone how Backstrom has gone for the better part of a decade. He’s the second-longest-tenured player on the team, and this was his first career game in the conference finals.”As a hockey player, you want to play,” Backstrom said. ”It feels nice to be back.”— TAMPA, Fla. (AP) Tuukka Rask stopped 23 shots to hand Tampa Bay its first shutout of the season and lifting the Boston Bruins over the Lightning 3-0 on Saturday night.It was Rask’s third shutout of the season and 41st of his career. It was also the first time the Lightning failed to score a goal since a 4-0 loss at Boston last April 4 – also against Rask.David Pastrnak, David Backes and Riley Nash all scored for Boston, which moved within two points of the Lightning for the top spot in the Eastern Conference with one game in hand. Torey Krug assisted on all three of the Bruins’ goals.Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 24 shots for the Lightning, whose last shutout at home came on March 16, 2017, by Toronto’s Frederik Andersen. Tampa Bay has lost consecutive games for the first time since going 9-0-1 in the previous 10 games.FLYERS 4, HURRICANES 2RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Valterri Filppula scored the tiebreaking goal with 5:49 left, and Philadelphia scored four times in the third period to beat Carolina.Travis Konecny and Jakub Voracek also scored as the Flyers scored three times in a 5:52 span to rally for the win. Michael Raffl added an empty-netter and Alex Lyon stopped 23 shots.Filppula’s breakaway goal snapped a 2-2 tie and secured a needed victory for the Flyers, who entered on a 1-6-1 skid. Philadelphia moved back into third place in the Metropolitan Division, tied with Columbus but holding the tiebreaker.Jaccob Slavin and Jordan Staal scored and Cam Ward made 23 saves for the Hurricanes, who have lost five of six.DEVILS 3, KINGS 0LOS ANGELES (AP) – Keith Kinkaid stopped 38 shots for his first shutout of the season to lead New Jersey past Los Angeles.Michael Grabner Adidas Tyler Graovac Jersey , Nico Hischier and Miles Wood each scored for the Devils, who have won three straight and four of five. New Jersey remained in the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, one point behind Metropolitan Division rivals Philadelphia and Columbus, who both won later Saturday night.Jonathan Quick made 25 saves for the Kings, who are tied with Anaheim for third in the Pacific.Kinkaid is 3-0-0 in his career against the Kings with two shutouts. He has won four consecutive starts and is 9-2-0 in his last 11.BLUE JACKETS 2, SENATORS 1COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Markus Nutivaara scored a power-play goal in the second period, Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 22 shots, and Columbus beat Ottawa.Boone Jenner also scored – his third tally in three games – for the Blue Jackets, who have won a season-high seven straight and are holding on to the first wild card spot in the Eastern Conference with 83 points, tied with Philadelphia and one point ahead of New Jersey.Alexandre Burrows scored his fifth of the year and Mike Condon stopped 33 shots for Ottawa, which saw a three-game winning streak snapped on the second night of a back-to-back.OILERS 4, PANTHERS 2SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) – Connor McDavid had a goal and two assists in the third period and Edmonton rallied past Florida.Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Ty Rattie and Adam Larsson also scored for the Oilers, who are 4-1-1 in their past six games.Cam Talbot made 40 saves for the Oilers.Frank Vatrano and Vincent Trocheck scored for Florida.Roberto Luongo made 32 saves for the Panthers, who lost for the first time this season when leading after two periods (23-1).SABRES 5, BLACKHAWKS 3BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – Nicholas Baptiste scored two goals in the third period to lead Buffalo past Chicago.Baptiste scored the game-winner with 1:56 remaining on a deflection. Following a faceoff win in the Chicago end Adidas Noah Hanifin Jersey , Marco Scandella’s shot from the point was deflected by Baptiste in the slot for the forward’s second goal of the game.Baptiste also tied the game at 3-3 on a long shot through traffic 2:17 into the third.Ryan O’Reilly, Benoit Pouliot and Sam Reinhart also scored for the Sabres, and Chad Johnson made 34 saves.Jonathan Toews, Jordan Oesterle and Tomas Jurco scored for the Blackhawks, and Jean-Francois Berube made 27 saves.The Sabres got a lift from the returning Jack Eichel, who was back in the lineup after missing 15 games because of an ankle injury. Eichel had one assist and five shots in 18:14.MAPLE LEAFS 4, CANADIENS 0TORONTO (AP) – Curtis McElhinney made 33 saves for his third shutout of the season and Toronto extended its club-record home winning streak to 12 straight games.Andreas Johnsson scored his first NHL goal, and William Nylander, Kasperi Kapanen and Nazem Kadri also had goals for Toronto, which has four victories in a row following a four-game slide (0-2-2).McElhinney, who picked up the eighth shutout of his career, got his second straight start and third consecutive win with Leafs No. 1 goalie Frederik Andersen still out after taking a blow to the head/neck area in a crease pileup on Wednesday against Dallas.Charlie Lindgren made 45 saves for Montreal, which dropped to 1-5-2 over its last eight games.BLUES 4, RANGERS 3, OTST. LOUIS (AP) – Brayden Schenn scored 1:02 into overtime, Alex Pietrangelo had two goals in regulation and St. Louis rallied to its third win in four games.Nikita Soshnikov also scored for the Blues. Jake Allen made 17 saves as St. Louis moved within three points of idle Dallas and Colorado for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, but lost leading scorer Vladimir Tarasenko to an upper-body injury.Tarasenko played 7 minutes, 53 seconds of the first period and left the ice following his last shift of the period with no visual injury. He did not return to the Blues bench to begin the second period.Mika Zibanejad scored twice for Rangers, earning his third multigoal game of the season. Mats Zuccarello also scored Adidas Alan Quine Jersey , Chris Kreider had a pair of assists and Alexandar Georgiev made 29 saves for New York, which had won its previous two games.WILD 3, COYOTES 1GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) – Marcus Foligno scored the tiebreaking goal midway through the third period, helping Minnesota to its fifth win in seven games.Nino Niederreiter also scored and Eric Staal added an empty-netter. The Wild continued their hold on third place in the Central Division with 10 games to play in the regular season.Devan Dubnyk, who spent 19 games with the Coyotes in the 2014-15 season, stopped 30 shots for his 200th career win.Antti Raanta, back in net for the Coyotes after a six-game injury absence, finished with 28 saves. Clayton Keller scored the Coyotes’ only goal as they have lost back-to-back games for the first time since Feb. 3 and 6.SHARKS 5, CANUCKS 3VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) – Timo Meier’s second goal of the game snapped a third-period tie and San Jose beat Vancouver for its fourth consecutive victory.Logan Couture and Kevin Labanc each had a goal and an assist, and Tomas Hertl scored into an empty net with 25 seconds remaining for the Sharks, who are 7-2-0 in their last nine games.Nikolay Goldobin, Alex Edler and Bo Horvat scored power-play goals and Sam Gagner had two assists for the Canucks, who lost their sixth consecutive game – their longest losing streak of the season.