Roman Josi scored two goals and added an assist and Matt Duchene and Tommy Novak each had a goal and two assists to lead the Nashville Predators to a 6-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday in Tempe, Ariz.

Yakov Trenin and Cody Glass each added a goal and an assist and Mikael Granlund chipped in two assists for Nashville, which won its third straight game and closed to within six points of Seattle for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference. Juuse Saros finished with 25 saves.

Nick Schmaltz had a goal and an assist and Shayne Gostisbehere also scored a goal for Arizona. Connor Ingram, claimed by the Coyotes off waivers from Nashville on Oct. 10, stopped 28 of 34 shots.

Arizona jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the 5:55 mark of the first period on a short-handed goal by Gostisbehere. It was the defenseman’s 10th goal of the season and his 300th career point.

Nashville tied it midway through the period on Trenin’s ninth goal of the season, which caromed off his skate and then the skate of Arizona defenseman Troy Stecher before reaching the net.

The Predators took a 2-1 lead at the 13:48 mark on a sharp-angle shot below the right circle by Duchene. It hit the near post and then bounced in off Ingram’s back for his 18th goal of the season.

Nashville extended its lead to 3-1 early in the second period when Josi fired a wrist shot from the edge of the right circle inside the left post.

Arizona cut it to 3-2 at the 7:27 mark when Schmaltz beat Saros with a wrist shot around a screen from the slot for his 17th goal of the season and 10th in the last 12 games.

Nashville then broke the game open with two goals in the span of 2:34 at the start of the third period. Novak got the first when he tucked in a rebound of Mikael Granlund’s shot for his ninth goal of the season. Josi followed with his 17th goal of the season, one-timing a shot from the middle of the ice just inside the blue line during a power play.

Glass added a power-play goal with 1:43 remaining to finish the scoring.

Forward Tanner Jeannot, who warmed up with Nashville before the game, was a late scratch for what the team announced was for trade-related reasons.

–Field Level Media

Mark Giordano scored in his return to Seattle and broke an NHL record for most career blocked shots as the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Kraken 5-1 Sunday in the opener of a five-game trip.

Auston Matthews scored twice and Mitchell Marner had three assists for the Maple Leafs, who have won three in a row and five of their past six games. Timothy Liljegren and John Tavares also tallied, and goaltender Ilya Samsonov made 26 saves.

Vince Dunn scored for Seattle, which suffered its third successive defeat. Goalie Philipp Grubauer was pulled early in the second period after allowing four goals on 21 shots. Martin Jones replaced Grubauer and stopped 11 of 12 shots the rest of the way.

The Kraken took the lead at 3:47 of the first period, as Jared McCann intercepted a Toronto clearance attempt at the blue line. He fed Jordan Eberle on the right wing, who spotted a wide-open Dunn joining the rush and passed to him for a one-timer from between the faceoff circles, beating Samsonov low to the stick side.

Giordano, the first captain for the expansion Kraken last season before being sent to his hometown Maple Leafs at the trade deadline in March, tied it at 4:58 on a low shot from the left point that made it through a screen and between Grubauer’s pads.

Giordano had one blocked shot to break a tie with Kris Russell for the most in the league (2,044) since the statistic was first kept in 2005.

Tavares gave Toronto the lead at 7:06 of the first. Justin Holl’s shot from the right point deflected off the skate of teammate William Nylander to Tavares at the far post, and he tapped the puck into the open side of the net.

Liljegren extended Toronto’s advantage to 3-1 at 12:51 of the period. Michael Bunting gained possession of the puck from two Seattle defenders in the left-wing corner and passed to Marner behind the net. He found Liljegren for a one-timer from the right faceoff dot.

Matthews ended Grubauer’s night with a goal at 4:13 of second period. Marner’s shot deflected off a defenseman’s skate, and Matthews batted the loose puck out of midair and into the net.

Matthews capped the scoring on a three-on-two rush at 12:31 of the third, redirecting Marner’s pass past a sprawling Jones.

Toronto reversed a 5-1 loss to the Kraken on Jan. 5 in Toronto.

–Field Level Media

The bottom of the Western Conference will clash Monday, with the Chicago Blackhawks and Anaheim Ducks experiencing rare flashes of success.

The Blackhawks arrive in Anaheim, Calif., riding a season-best, five-game winning streak, although the sense around the team is as much about the end of an era as it is about their ability to come out on top in some recent games.

Blackhawks star Patrick Kane went back to Chicago just before the team pulled off a 4-3 shootout victory over the host San Jose Sharks on Saturday as he awaits answers to continued trade rumors. After 16 seasons and three Stanley Cup titles, Kane’s time with the team could be done.

Yet, there seemed to be no sense of melancholy over the news, with the Blackhawks showing Saturday they are more intent on moving forward.

“We got it done somehow,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “Sometimes it’s just not conventional, not necessarily ugly, but it was a little bit sloppy at some times. But it’s a road game. Guys scraped it out. Guys were banged up and we got the win.”

Chicago’s Dave Gust used the opportunity to score a goal in his NHL debut. The tally came in the first minute of his first shift on his first NHL shot, all at the age of 29. Adding to the storybook moment, Gust is a Chicago-area native.

“Can’t write it up any better,” Gust said. “Good first game. It’s good to get that out of the way.”

Blackhawks goalie Petr Mrazek made 45 saves, plus all three Sharks attempts in the shootout.

Max Domi, who leads Chicago in goals (18) and points (47), scored a goal against the Sharks and is on a six-game point streak with four goals and eight assists over the stretch.

The Ducks enter on a modest two-game winning streak, with both coming on the road. The most recent was a 3-2 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes, who own the second-best record in the NHL.

The Ducks went 2-0-0 against the Hurricanes this season. Against everybody else, it has been a bit of a mess. Before the current two-game run, the Ducks had lost six consecutive games and seven of eight.

They return home after a successful 2-1-1 road trip, but they are just 9-16-1 in their own building and have lost three consecutive games there.

In the victory over the Hurricanes, goalie John Gibson made 51 saves, the third time he has stopped at least 50 shots in his last six games. Jakob Silfverberg and All-Star Troy Terry scored third-period goals for Anaheim.

Budding Ducks star Trevor Zegras had two assists, as did Ryan Strome, with Zegras reaching a team-best 50 points after recording 61 a season ago.

“You know what you’re coming into (against Carolina) as a team,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said. “We’re at the other end of the spectrum, trying to build something similar years from now. We knew, and John knew himself, that he was going to be tested.”

–Field Level Media

With the season heading toward the stretch run and the NHL trade deadline on Friday, things are moving around the league.

The Vegas Golden Knights got in on the action, acquiring Ivan Barbashev from St. Louis for former first-round draft pick Zach Dean. Vegas will have Barbashev in the lineup when it faces the Colorado Avalanche in Denver on Monday night, according to multiple reports.

Barbashev, 27, won the Stanley Cup with the Blues in 2019. St. Louis is waving the white flag on this season, and the Golden Knights seized the opportunity to get a goal-scoring forward as they vie for the top seed in the Western Conference.

Barbashev adds much-needed depth with captain Mark Stone out indefinitely after undergoing back surgery on Jan. 31. Barbashev reunites with Alex Pietrangelo, who is in his third season with Vegas after 10-plus years with the Blues.

The Golden Knights sit atop the Pacific Division after going 6-0-3 in their last nine games. They are coming off a shootout loss against Dallas on Saturday night. They have yet to lose in regulation since the All-Star break.

“We’re more resilient,” Vegas right wing Jonathan Marchessault said last week. “We play a full 60 minutes instead of having a sloppy half a period sometimes. I think our effort has been better, and our support has been better as a unit of five out there. I think we just have to keep it going.”

Vegas and the Avalanche have a history going back to the 2021 playoffs. Colorado won the first two games of the series, but the Golden Knights won four in a row to advance to the Western Conference finals.

The Avalanche used that disappointment as motivation for last year, and it paid off with a Stanley Cup championship. Colorado is trying to repeat, and after a rough patch, it has surged in the Central Division with five straight wins.

The last two victories have been especially impressive — 5-1 at Winnipeg on Friday night and 4-1 at home against Calgary on Saturday night. The Avalanche just finished a stretch where they played three back-to-back sets over 12 days and went 5-0-1 in that span.

“Every team we’ve played we’re kind of in the battle with for a playoff spot. Just crazy,” said Nathan MacKinnon, who had goals in each of the last two games and is riding a seven-game point streak. “They’re all waiting for us each time, too, so it wasn’t like they were on a back-to-back as well. It’s been a weird schedule.”

Colorado has won the last two games without reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar, who has missed seven of the last eight games with two concussions. He suffered the first at Pittsburgh on Feb. 7 and his second one came at St. Louis on Feb. 18.

Makar is expected to be back in the lineup against Vegas.

The Avalanche could be without Kurtis MacDermid, who was injured in a fight against Flames winger Milan Lucic on Saturday night. Colorado did not practice on Sunday and did not provide an update on MacDermid.

–Field Level Media

Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Brian Dumoulin each had a goal and an assist, and the Pittsburgh Penguins let loose with six unanswered goals in the second period on Sunday to topple the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning 7-3.

Drew O’Connor, Teddy Blueger, Jason Zucker and Jeff Carter also scored, and Marcus Pettersson, Kris Letang and Jeff Petry each added two assists for the Penguins, who won their second straight.

Pittsburgh goaltender Casey DeSmith made 26 saves.

Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point each had a goal and an assist, and Anthony Cirelli also scored for the Lightning, who had their three-game point streak snapped.

Tampa Bay goaltender Brian Elliott made 29 saves.

The Lightning played without defenseman Erik Cernak, who served the second game of a two-game suspension.

O’Connor got things started at 3:20 of the first, giving the Penguins a 1-0 lead when he deflected Pettersson’s rising point shot past Elliott’s glove.

Tampa Bay tied it at 16:06 of the first when a rebound of Zach Bogosian’s shot bounced in off Cirelli’s knee.

The Lightning took a 2-1 lead 1:59 later during four-on-four play when Kucherov picked up his 700th career point when he put in his own rebound on a backhander.

Pittsburgh then went wild in the second.

Malkin got a breakaway coming out of the penalty box and scored under Elliott’s pads at 6:17 to tie it.

On a power play at 15:28, Crosby reached 70 points for the 13th time in his career when he took a backhand feed from Jake Guentzel ad scored from near the right post.

Blueger scored his first goal in 33 games, finishing off a rebound with Elliott pulled out of position, to make it 4-2 at 16:20.

At 17:50, Carter scored his ninth goal of the season when he roofed a shot from the right dot.

Zucker’s goal on a backhander made it 6-2 with 1:23 left in the second, and Dumoulin got his first of the season on a blast through traffic with 4.2 seconds left.

Point’s power-play goal at 7:57 of the third cut it to 7-3.

–Field Level Media

Vincent Trocheck scored twice in 95 seconds early in the second period, and the New York Rangers stopped a four-game losing streak with a 5-2 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Kings on Sunday night.

The Rangers were without defenseman Ryan Lindgren (upper body), who is day-to-day following a hit by Washington’s T.J. Oshie. They dressed Braden Schneider and Ryan Carpenter, but Schneider did not play and Carpenter took one shift due to roster management for salary cap reasons ahead of a possible trade for Chicago’s Patrick Kane.

New York was down to 15 skaters for the final 43-plus minutes after defenseman K’Andre Miller was given a match penalty for spitting on Los Angeles defenseman Drew Doughty during a scrum with 3:23 remaining in the first.

Alexis Lafreniere scored in the first period while Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad tallied in the third for the Rangers, who scored seven goals during their losing streak. Zibanejad scored on a power play after appearing to injure his ankle blocking a shot late in the second.

New York goalie Igor Shesterkin was sharp in a 26-save performance after allowing 17 goals in his previous four games.

Viktor Arvidsson scored a power-play goal late in the second and Matt Roy tallied early in the third for Los Angeles, which fell to 8-3-2 in its past 13 games.

Los Angeles goalie Jonathan Quick was pulled after allowing three goals on seven shots. Pheonix Copley made 12 saves.

New York went ahead with six minutes remaining in the first when Lafreniere got a feed from Kaapo Kakko and his shot from a sharp angle on the red line to the left of the net banked off Quick’s pads.

Shortly after the Rangers killed off Miller’s penalty, Trocheck’s shot from the middle of the slot deflected off Roy’s stick for a 2-0 lead. Trochek then made it 3-0 with a shot from the middle of the slot that sailed over Quick, who was then pulled.

Los Angeles ended Shesterkin’s shutout bid with 1:48 remaining in the second when Arvidsson batted a loose puck out of mid-air, and Roy made it a 3-2 by finishing off a two-on-one with Phillip Danault 87 seconds into the third.

Panarin made it 4-2 less than a minute after Roy scored by putting his own rebound past Copley, and Zibanejad gave New York a 5-2 lead with 14:34 remaining.

–Field Level Media

The New Jersey Devils acquired forward Timo Meier — considered one of the best players on the trade block ahead of the NHL’s March 3 deadline — in a megadeal with the San Jose Sharks on Sunday that saw nine players change teams.

The Sharks traded Meier, defensemen Scott Harrington and Santeri Hatakka, forward Timur Ibragimov, goaltender Zachary Emond and a 2024 fifth-round pick (originally from the Colorado Avalanche) to the Devils.

New Jersey sent back forwards Andreas Johnsson and Fabian Zetterlund, defensemen Shakir Mukhamadullin and Nikita Okhotiuk, a conditional 2023 first-round pick, a conditional 2024 second-rounder and a 2024 seventh-rounder.

But the centerpiece of the move is Meier, a 26-year-old winger on an expiring contract. San Jose retained 50 percent of Meier’s salary as part of the agreement.

The overachieving Devils, second in the Metropolitan Division, added a key asset as they hone in on a playoff berth. The Sharks, meanwhile, are seventh in the Pacific Division and well outside the Western Conference playoff picture.

Meier has tallied 52 points (31 goals, 21 assists) in 57 games this season for the Sharks, who are seventh in the Pacific Division and well outside the Western Conference playoff picture. In seven NHL seasons, all with the Sharks, Meier has 316 points (154 goals, 162 assists) in 451 games.

Harrington, who turns 30 next month, was in his first season with San Jose after stints with the Pittsburgh Penguins (2014-15), Toronto Maple Leafs (2015-16) and Columbus Blue Jackets (2016-22). He has seven points, including one goal, in 28 games this season.

Hatakka, Ibragimov and Emond are all prospects, with Hatakka playing nine games at the NHL level last season. In exchange, the Devils gave up two prospects in Mukhamadullin (a 2020 first-round selection) and Okhotiuk and two veterans in Johnsson and Zetterlund.

Johnsson, 28, played in just two big-league games for the Devils this season in his third year with the franchise. He has 30 goals and 37 assists in 125 career games with the Toronto Maple Leafs (2017-20) and Devils.

Zetterlund, 23, broke into the NHL last season and has nine goals and 19 assists in 59 career games, including six goals and 14 helpers in 45 appearances this season.

–Field Level Media

Semyon Varlamov stopped all 23 shots he faced Sunday afternoon for the visiting New York Islanders, who blanked the skidding Winnipeg Jets 4-0.

Varlamov, making his first start since Feb. 18, posted his second shutout of the season. He made 21 saves in a 3-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 4.

Bo Horvat scored a short-handed goal in the first period, Alexander Romanov and Brock Nelson scored in the second and Adam Pelech added an empty-netter late in the third for the Islanders, who have won three of four (3-1-0). New York remained three points ahead of the Buffalo Sabres in the race for the first wild card in the Eastern Conference.

David Rittich recorded 20 saves for the Jets, who have lost five of six (1-5-0) to fall into the second wild card in the West, one point ahead of the Seattle Kraken prior to the Kraken’s game later Sunday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Horvat opened the scoring 1:12 after Sebastian Aho was whistled for hooking. The center picked up the puck deep in the Islanders’ zone and skated up the right side before firing a shot under the legs of Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey and beyond the stick of Rittich at the 7:56 mark.

Romanov doubled the lead 4:22 into the second. Casey Cizikas took the puck from Hudson Fasching at the edge of the Islanders’ zone and skated around the Jets’ net and almost all the way to the blue line before passing to a wide-open Romanov, who beat Rittich as he was screened by teammate Pierre-Luc Dubois as well as Matt Martin.

The Jets nearly ended the shutout before Nelson scored in impressive fashion with 1:19 left in the period. Kyle Connor’s backhanded shot into the crease clipped off teammate Sam Gagner and bounced into the slot, where Nelson reached out and poked the puck past Brenden Dillon.

Zach Parise then beat Neal Pionk to the puck at the boards and backhanded a pass through the neutral zone to Nelson, who controlled the puck while passing it through the legs of Connor before whirling in the slot and beating Rittich.

The Jets pulled Rittich with about four minutes left in the third but didn’t build a threat before Pelech scored into the empty net with 2:01 left.

–Field Level Media

David Poile, the only general manager in Nashville Predators history and a U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer, will retire from the position June 30 and former coach Barry Trotz will take over the job, Sportsnet and the Tennessean reported Sunday.

Poile, 73, is the longest-serving general manager in NHL history, with 15 seasons as GM of the Washington Capitals followed by his 26-year run with the Predators since the then-expansion team hired him in 1997. He became the first person to reach 3,000 regular-season games as an NHL general manager earlier this season.

Poile won the NHL’s General Manager of the Year award in 2017, when Nashville reached its first Stanley Cup Final.

Trotz was the Predators’ first head coach, leading them for their first 15 seasons in the league. He then coached stints with the Capitals (2014-18) and New York Islanders (2018-22), leading Washington to its first and only Stanley Cup title in 2018.

Trotz, who was fired by the Islanders following last season, is the third-winningest coach in NHL history with 914 wins across 23 seasons.

Sportsnet reported that Trotz, 60, is expected to start working with the Predators immediately but won’t officially become the GM until after June 30. The new league year is expected to start July 1. Poile is likely to stay on as a consultant for the Predators, according to Sportsnet.

–Field Level Media