The Columbus Blue Jackets found their offense just as their road trip was about to end.
Ryan Johansen scored twice and added an assist, Ryan Murray had a goal and an assist, and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped all 18 shots he faced to lead Columbus to an impressive 6-0 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre on Monday night.
Columbus finished with three wins during its five-game road trip, but it was held to four goals in its previous three games before the outburst Monday. The Blue Jackets return home to face the Nashville Predators on Wednesday.
Cam Atkinson broke a scoreless tie at 10:18 of the opening period. With the teams at even strength, Artem Anisimov sent a pass from behind the net in front to Matt Calvert, who backhanded to Atkinson for the easy tap-in past Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer. It was Atkinson’s sixth goal of the season.
R.J. Umberger doubled the Blue Jackets’ lead 18 seconds later with his sixth goal of the season. Ryan Murray carried the puck around the Maple Leafs net and fired a quick shot that was denied by Reimer, but Umberger was able to poke the rebound home to make it 2-0.
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The Blue Jackets continued to generate offense in the second period. Jack Skille scored his first goal of the season at 3:07, when he came down on a 2-on-1 with Mark Letestu, took the latter’s feed and ripped it from the left circle past Reimer to give Columbus a 3-0 lead.
Murray made it 4-0 at 6:25 of the second via the power play. After Jake Gardiner was whistled for hooking, James Wisniewski sent a pass from the left circle to the slot for Murray, who fired a shot past Reimer for this third goal of the season. It also gave Murray his first multipoint game in the NHL.
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Lightning 5, Rangers 0 —Martin St. Louis was honored for appearing in 1,000 NHL games before the start of the game between Tampa Bay and visiting New York and he made it a special one.
St. Louis scored twice and had an assist, and Ben Bishop stopped all 37 shots he faced to lead the Lightning to a 5-0 win at Tampa Bay Times Forum.
The win extended Bishop’s career record against the Rangers to 4-0-0, including two shutouts. It was his 14th win of the season and second shutout.
The victory snapped a four-game winless streak for the Lightning, who extended their home record to 9-2-0, including six consecutive wins.
Teddy Purcell had two goals. He has seven this season.
The loss dropped the Rangers back to .500 (12-12-0). They’ve scored seven goals in the past six games.
St. Louis’s second goal came at 3:12 of the second period, when Valtteri Filppula’s outlet pass sent him between two Ranger defenders and in alone on goalie Henrik Lundqvist. St. Louis picked the upper right corner of the net to extend the Lightning lead to 3-0.
Tampa Bay killed off 58 seconds of a 5-on-3 when Alex Killorn and B.J. Crombeen drew penalties less than a minute apart. In total, the Rangers had the man advantage six times during which they generated 12 shots. In the past 19 games the Lightning have killed off 60 of their past 65 penalties.
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Purcell found a loose puck in the neutral zone and eased down the right side of the Rangers zone before scoring on a wrist shot for his first of the game. The unassisted goal came with 3:08 remaining in the second period and sent the Lightning to intermission with a 4-0 lead.
Cam Talbot replaced Lundqvist at the beginning of the third period. Lundqvist finished with 18 saves on 22 shots.
Jets 3, Devils 1 — Ondrej Pavelec made 25 saves in earning his 100th NHL win as Winnipeg snapped a four-game losing streak by winning in New Jersey.
Mark Scheifele and Evander Kane scored in the first two periods as the Jets opened a season-high, six-game road trip by completing a two-game, season-series sweep of the Devils, who lost their second straight game.
Devin Setoguchi scored into an empty net in the final minute.
Pavelec was less than 10 minutes from his second shutout of the season when Patrik Elias deflected a shot from the point by Andy Greene past him.
Panthers 3, Flyers 1 — Sean Bergenheim scored his first two goals in more than 20 months and Tim Thomas made 38 saves as Florida beat Philadelphia in Sunrise, Fla.
Bergenheim was playing in his 10th game after dealing with lower-abdomen issues since the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs. His prior goal came April 24, 2012 in Game 6 of the Panthers’ Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series against the New Jersey Devils.