Cal Clutterbuck posted his first two-goal game in more than a year and the New York Islanders took advantage of a spate of turnovers by the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs to earn a 7-2 win Tuesday in Elmont, N.Y.

Zach Parise, Hudson Fasching, Simon Holmstrom, Noah Dobson and Anders Lee also scored for the Islanders (37-27-8, 82 points), who extended their lead over the Florida Panthers to three points in the race for the first Eastern Conference wild card. New York is four points ahead of the ninth-place Pittsburgh Penguins.

Goalie Ilya Sorokin made 23 saves.

Sam Lafferty and Mitch Marner scored for the Maple Leafs (42-19-9, 93 points), who had a two-game winning streak snapped. Goalie Ilya Samsonov recorded 21 saves.

Lafferty, who was acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks on Feb. 27, scored his first goal with his new team when he raised his stick to redirect a shot by Timothy Liljegren that trickled past Sorokin with 8:59 left in the first.

Parise tied the score with a 4-on-4 goal just 28 seconds into the middle period. Scott Mayfield skated around the back of the net and passed to Parise, who fired a shot beyond Samsonov’s glove as he was stuck leaning to the other side.

Fasching and Clutterbuck scored off turnovers fewer than five minutes apart late in the second. Liljegren misfired on an attempted clearing pass and Fasching picked up the puck and sent a 75 mph slapshot beyond Samsonov’s glove with 6:10 left.

Clutterbuck scored his first goal with 2:34 remaining in the period. A hard check by Casey Cizikas jarred the puck loose from Kampf before Clutterbuck redirected Ryan Pulock’s shot from the blue line.

Marner scored for the third straight game, 3:29 into the third; he took a pass from Austin Matthews, went to one knee in the slot and beat Sorokin under his stick.

Clutterbuck scored again just 44 seconds later; he picked off Morgan Rielly just inside the blue line in the Islanders’ zone and raced in for the unassisted goal. It was the eighth career two-goal game for Clutterbuck and his first since Dec. 16, 2021.

Dobson scored a length-of-the-ice empty-netter just after Samsonov was pulled with 6:04 left. Lee scored with 3:14 remaining.

–Field Level Media

Kirby Dach tallied a goal in his return to the lineup, Jonathan Drouin scored after being benched and the Montreal Canadiens topped the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 Tuesday night.

After missing 16 games, Dach netted the game’s first goal while Drouin — who dressed but didn’t skate during Saturday’s loss in Tampa for disciplinary reasons — added a second as the Habs (28-37-6, 62 points) salvaged one of four contests in the season series.

Mike Matheson also hit the back of the net, and Nick Suzuki notched two assists. Goaltender Sam Montembeault stopped 31 of 33 shots in beating the Lightning for the first time.

Right winger Brendan Gallagher returned and played on the third line after not appearing in a game since Jan. 3 due to a lower-body injury.

For Tampa Bay (42-24-6, 90 points), Brayden Point scored his 44th goal, and Pat Maroon also scored.

Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy’s 11-game winning streak against Montreal came to an end after making 17 saves on 20 shots.

Vasilevskiy is the only goalie to record a double-digit, regular-season win streak against the Habs in the modern era (since 1943-44).

Dach returned on the top line and put Montreal on the board first. Suzuki’s shot from the slot squeezed its way through Vasilevskiy’s pads, with Dach tapping it in for his 13th marker at 8:27.

Exactly 14 minutes in, Denis Gurianov found Drouin on the left side for just the second goal of the season for the Quebec native to put the game at 2-0.

In the middle part of 19 games in 33 days — the most over that span in franchise history — the Lightning were stymied by Montembeault, who stopped all 10 shots he faced in the first period.

During Tampa Bay’s second power play, Point finally solved the Montreal netminder with his 18th goal on the man advantage this season after Gurianov went off for tripping at 8:30 of the second.

However, Matheson answered by floating a long shot near the blue line through traffic in front of the Lightning goal. The puck found its way in for his eighth goal at 16:58.

In the final frame at 14:54, the Lightning cut the Habs’ lead to 3-2 when Maroon posted his third marker.

Tampa Bay pulled Vasilevskiy in the final minute, and Montreal’s Josh Anderson was injured and had to be helped off the ice after crashing into the net trying to score.

But Montreal managed to hold on for just its second win in its past 11 games (2-7-2).

–Field Level Media

A two-goal first period stood up as the Boston Bruins defeated the visiting Ottawa Senators 2-1 for their fourth consecutive win on Tuesday night.

After Ottawa drew first blood, David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk scored for Boston.

Hampus Lindholm assisted on both, posting multiple helpers in a game for the eighth time this season.

Linus Ullmark made 40 saves for Boston, improving to 10-1-0 in his last 11 starts.

Boston’s four straight victories have come after its first back-to-back regulation losses of the season.

Dylan Gambrell scored Ottawa’s goal, and Mads Sogaard stopped 33 shots. The Senators are 1-5-1 in their last seven games.

Ottawa finished with a 41-35 shots advantage and went 0-for-3 on the power play, letting a late opportunity go by with the goaltender pulled.

Boston had allowed 40 or more shots only four other times this season.

Ottawa got off to a strong start and played with a lead after Gambrell scored at the 8:55 mark. A turnover in the neutral zone allowed Ridly Greig to rush the other way and set up Gambrell for the wraparound goal.

The lead did not last long as Boston took advantage of a 58-second 5-on-3, with Krejci burying a rebound from the left crease at 11:33. Lindholm’s point shot started the play.

Despite being outshot 16-11, the Bruins finished the first period with a 2-1 lead. DeBrusk tallied the go-ahead goal at 15:52 as he took Brad Marchand’s cross-ice pass and whizzed from the left wing into the slot for a backhand finish.

In the scoreless second period, Ottawa had a 21-15 edge in shots on goal without the help of the power play until the Bruins were called for too many men on the ice in the final five minutes.

Greig hitting Ottawa’s second goalpost of the night at the 12:24 mark represented a key game-tying chance.

–Field Level Media

Luke Evangelista had two goals and two assists and Matt Duchene added two goals and one assist to power the Nashville Predators to a 7-3 victory over the host Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday.

Philip Tomasino, Ryan McDonagh and Tommy Novak each had a goal and an assist for the Predators (35-26-8, 78 points), who ended their three-game losing streak that included a setback in overtime. Juuse Saros made 28 saves for the Predators.

Dylan Cozens, Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner scored for the Sabres (33-31-6, 72 points), who have dropped four straight and 10 of their past 12 games (2-8-2), getting outscored 59-31 in that time.

Trailing 2-0 after the first period, the Sabres halved the deficit at the 3:36 mark of the second period.

JJ Peterka carried the puck the length of the ice only to be stopped by Saros, who failed to make a clean save, enabling Cozens to put home the rebound from close range.

Nashville countered 24 seconds later. After getting a pass from Evangelista along the wing, Tyson Barrie slid a pass to a streaking Novak, whose breakaway goal extended the advantage to 3-1.

The Predators took a 4-1 lead when Evangelista wristed Novak’s pass by Craig Anderson at the 9:21 mark. Saros, whose outlet pass to Novak started the rush, was also credited with an assist — the fifth of his career and his first since the 2017-18 season.

Evangelista made it 5-1 when he scored off an assist from Kiefer Sherwood just 40 seconds later, and McDonagh capped Nashville’s four-goal period with a tally off a feed from Evangelista with 4:08 left.

Thompson’s power-play goal off assists from Rasmus Dahlin and Victor Olofsson cut the lead to 6-2 with 2:43 left in the period.

Skinner scored off an assist from Alex Tuch to make it 6-3 at the 7:45 mark of the third period.

Duchene capped the scoring with an empty-net goal off McDonagh’s assist with 2:23 left.

Nashville took a 1-0 lead when Duchene delivered a cross-ice pass to Tomasino, who drove a one-timer by Anderson at the 11:45 mark of the first period.

The Predators doubled their lead with 1:17 left in the period. After taking a pass on the left wing from Jeremy Lauzon, Tomasino slid a cross-ice pass to Duchene, who blasted a shot past Anderson.

–Field Level Media

Matt Boldy scored with two seconds left in overtime and Filip Gustavsson made a career-high 47 saves as the visiting Minnesota Wild beat the New Jersey Devils 2-1 in Newark, N.J., on Tuesday night.

After the Devils’ Jack Hughes hit the post in the waning seconds of overtime, the puck caromed off the far board and onto the stick of Boldy, who broke free, then flipped a back-hander past Vitek Vanecek (27 saves).

Mason Shaw also scored and Gustavsson kept his team in the game all night as the Wild (41-22-8, 90 points), in the mix for the Central Division title, improved to 13-1-3 in their last 17 games.

Timo Meier scored for the Devils (45-18-8, 98 points), who are in the mix for first place in the Metropolitan Division, but mired in a 1-2-2 stretch.

With the game scoreless after two periods, Minnesota got on the board first. Shaw got enough of the puck to knock it in off the stick of New Jersey’s Ondrej Palat and through Vanecek at 6:41 of the third.

However, with 7:52 remaining in regulation, the Devils answered. Meier’s wraparound clipped the left skate of Gustavsson and in for his 35th goal of the season and his fourth in 10 games since joining New Jersey from San Jose.

The first two periods between two of the NHL’s best defensive teams, each allowing an average of 2.67 goals per game beginning the night, featured plenty of tight checking and physical play.

The Devils’ Jesper Bratt had two quality looks at the net in the final 5:30 of the second period, but Gustavsson was up to the task. He also stopped quality chances from Meier and Hughes later in the middle frame.

Meanwhile, Vanecek also found himself busy in the second period, facing 11 shots from the Wild. He made a key stop on a snapshot from ex-Devil Marcus Johansson with a little more than one minute to play in the second.

Minnesota, amid a 7-0-2 stretch on the road, has won the last five meetings between the teams.

–Field Level Media

Travis Sanheim scored two goals, Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee each had a goal and an assist and the host Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Florida Panthers 6-3 on Tuesday.

Scott Laughton and Ivan Provorov contributed one goal apiece while Egor Zamula, Noah Cates and Tyson Foerster had two assists each for the Flyers (26-32-12, 64 points).

Goaltender Carter Hart made 41 saves for Philadelphia, which went 1-4-1 in its previous six games.

Brandon Montour and Sam Reinhart each had one goal and one assist for the Panthers, who saw their three-game winning streak come to an end.

Matthew Tkachuk added a goal for Florida (36-28-7, 79 points). One day after becoming the Panthers’ career points leader with 614, Aleksander Barkov registered two more assists.

Panthers goaltender Alex Lyon stopped 18 shots.

With the Flyers up 5-2, the game became chippy midway through the third period with a fight between Philadelphia’s Brendan Lemieux and Florida’s Radko Gudas.

The Panthers then received a two-man advantage for 1:08 when Nick Seeler was whistled for tripping. Reinhart scored with one second left on the power play to get Florida within 5-3 at 13:49.

Frost’s empty-net goal at 17:59 of the third sealed the victory.

The Panthers quickly went ahead 1-0 at 1:15 of the first period when Tkachuk redirected a shot in front for his 34th goal of the season.

The Flyers tied the game at 1 when Cates flipped a wrist shot from the point that was deflected by Farabee and past Lyon at 4:43 of the first.

Florida came out aggressive in the first six minutes of the second period with several strong scoring chances by Tkachuk, Gudas and Eric Staal.

Philadelphia then came back and took a 2-1 advantage at 8:42 when Lemieux sent a crisp pass to Sanheim, who connected.

Montour equalized at 2 with a shot that ricocheted off Hart’s pad and just inside the post at 14:17 of the middle period.

The Flyers regained a 3-2 lead at 16:54 of the second when Laughton skated in all alone and scored on the backhand.

Sanheim’s second goal, at 18:05 of the second, extended the lead to 4-2. Fifty seconds later, Provorov scored for a 5-2 advantage.

–Field Level Media

On a night he was honored for passing one NHL legend, Washington’s Alex Ovechkin made history by eclipsing another. However, the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets stole the show with a stunning 7-6 overtime win over the Capitals on Tuesday night.

Jack Roslovic took advantage of a T.J. Oshie turnover and scored his second goal of the night 2:43 into overtime, giving the Blue Jackets the win on a night when they trailed 3-0 and 5-3.

Nick Jensen’s second goal of the game, with 4:36 remaining in regulation, gave Washington a 6-5 lead. However, Boone Jenner, with an extra Columbus attacker on the ice, tied the game 6-6 with 46.9 seconds left in regulation, forcing overtime.

Before the game, Ovechkin was honored in a 20-minute on-ice ceremony by Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and several other dignitaries. Ovechkin passed Gordie Howe for second place on the all-time NHL goals list with two against Winnipeg on Dec. 23. Howe’s son Mark was part of the ceremony.

Since then, the Capitals captain has scored 18 more goals, including one Tuesday night that gave him 40 goals on the season. It is his 13th season of at least 40 goals, passing Wayne Gretzky for most in NHL history. With 820 career goals, Ovechkin stands 74 goals shy of Gretzky’s all-time mark.

Though they earned a point, the loss was a painful one for the Capitals (33-31-8, 74 points), who are trying to catch the Florida Panthers for the second and final Eastern Conference wild card.

The Blue Jackets (22-41-7, 51 points) finished their five-game road swing with a win that snapped a three-game skid, giving them two victories on the trip.

The Capitals had given up the first goal in five straight games before scoring the first three goals in the opening 16 minutes on Tuesday.

Ovechkin made history just over five minutes into the first period when he flipped the puck toward the left post for Strome. The puck never reached Strome and instead went off the stick of Columbus defenseman Nick Blankenburg for his 40th goal of the season.

Strome was initially awarded with the goal, but replays showed the puck never reached the Washington forward and instead deflected off Blankenburg’s stick and in.

Adam Boquist tallied twice for Columbus, and Emil Bemstrom and Eric Robinson had a goal and an assist apiece. Johnny Gaudreau, Kent Johnson and Patrik Laine each logged two assists, and Daniil Tarasov made 31 saves for the win.

Nick Jensen scored twice, Oshie and Sonny Milano each had a goal and an assist and Conor Sheary also scored for the Capitals. Tom Wilson was credited with two assists, and Charlie Lindgren stopped 32 shots.

–Field Level Media

Teuvo Teravainen gave Carolina its first lead of the game with 2:33 remaining and the visiting Hurricanes rode a three-goal third period to defeat the New York Rangers 3-2 on Tuesday night.

Jalen Chatfield and Stefan Noesen scored 49 seconds apart for the Hurricanes, but Carolina (46-15-8, 100 points) gave up a goal in between in an eventful final 11 minutes.

Frederik Andersen stopped 29 shots for the victory. Metropolitan Division-leading Carolina has 100 or more points in back-to-back seasons for the first time in franchise history.

Tyler Motte and Kaapo Kakko scored for the Rangers (41-20-10, 92 points), who concluded a season-long five-game homestand. New York was trying to sweep a homestand of five or more games for just the second time in franchise history.

Igor Shesterkin made 36 saves for the Rangers.

The teams will meet in a rematch Thursday night in Raleigh, N.C.

The Hurricanes had a largely ragged three-game road stretch, though they won the last two of those games in dramatic fashion after a regulation goal in the final second and an overtime winner Saturday at Philadelphia.

Teravainen has 11 goals this season.

The Rangers had only 18 shots in the second and third periods combined, with eight of those coming in the final eight minutes.

Motte scored with three minutes left in the first period and that goal held up until the wild stretch in the third.

The Hurricanes had two goals within a 49-second span, though Kakko scored for the Rangers in between those Carolina tallies.

The Rangers had breakdowns on both Carolina goals. Chatfield skated down the right side for a shot that only had to beat Shesterkin at the 9:49 mark.

After Kakko’s goal at 10:20 of the third, the Rangers lost track of Noesen, who was stationed alone in front of the net and beat Shesterkin for his 11th goal of the season at 10:38.

The Rangers had defenseman Ryan Lindgren back in the lineup after an 11-game absence with an upper-body injury. He had an assist and was plus-1 in 16:13 of ice time.

–Field Level Media

Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin scored his 40th goal of the season during the first period of Tuesday’s home game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, becoming the first player in NHL history to post 13 40-goal seasons in his career.

Ovechkin was tied with Wayne Gretzky for the previous mark of 12 40-goal campaigns.

Ovechkin skated in down the right side and fired a shot at the far post. The goal was originally credited to teammate Dylan Strome, whose stick appeared to redirect the puck into the net, but when a review showed it was actually off Columbus defenseman Nick Blankenburg’s stick, an official scoring change gave Ovechkin the marker.

Since Ovechkin was a rookie in 2005-06, no other NHL player has accumulated more than six 40-goal seasons.

That scoring pace is helping Ovechkin chase down the ultimate goal-scoring record held by Gretzky. Tuesday’s tally was the 820th of Ovechkin’s career; he needs just 75 more to pass Gretzky for the NHL’s all-time goals record.

–Field Level Media

The Colorado Avalanche signed coach Jared Bednar to a three-year contract extension Tuesday that runs through the 2026-27 season.

The extension kicks in for the 2024-25 season.

Bednar, 51, who led the Avalanche to the 2022 Stanley Cup, is the winningest coach in franchise history with a 281-190-52 record. The Avalanche are currently in second place in the Central Division at 41-22-6.

“Jared has obviously proven himself to be one of the top coaches in our business,” Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland said in a news release. “His strength as a communicator, his relationship with the players, the way he prepares each and every day is a huge reason our team has been so successful. He is an exceptional leader and we couldn’t be more excited to have him continue as our head coach.”

Bednar is in his seventh season as the Avs’ head coach and is the third-longest tenured coach in the NHL behind Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper (March 2013) and Pittsburgh’s Mike Sullivan (December 2015).

–Field Level Media