NHL Roundup

NHL ROUNDUP
CAPITALS 7, PANTHERS 4: Tomas Fleischmann scored twice during a five-goal third period, and short-handed Washington beat Florida for a sweep of their home-and-home series. Washington played a third straight game without two-time NHL MVP Alex Ovechkin, who has an upper body injury. The Capitals were also without injured defensemen Mike Green and Jeff Schultz.

PREDATORS 3, KINGS 1: Francis Boullion, Cody Franson and Joel Ward scored to lead Nashville to a victory over Los Angeles. Dan Ellis made 27 saves in his first start since Oct. 28, when he was pulled by coach Barry Trotz early in the second period after giving up three goals on 10 shots in a game the Predators rallied to win 4-3 at Minnesota.

LIGHTNING 3, CANADIENS 1: Ryan Malone and Alex Tanguay each had a goal and an assist to lead Tampa Bay to a win over Montreal. James Wright also scored for Tampa Bay, which went 2-0-1 after dropping the opener of a four-game road trip at Philadelphia on Monday.

BLUE JACKETS 3, HURRICANES 2: Rick Nash scored the Columbus Blue Jackets' third goal in a 2:41 span of the third period to beat Carolina, the Hurricanes' franchise-record 12th consecutive game without a win. Nikita Filatov and Jared Boll also scored goals for the Blue Jackets, who have picked up points in their last five games. Goalie Steve Mason, who had 24 saves, assisted on Boll's go-ahead goal.

BRUINS 4, SABRES 2: Mark Recchi and Zdeno Chara scored first-period power-play goals as goal-starved Boston halted a rough stretch with a win over Buffalo, sending the Sabres to their first consecutive losses of the season. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Bruins, who had scored just once in their previous three games - that coming with 52 seconds remaining in regulation of a 2-1 shootout loss to Montreal in its last game on Thursday.

ISLANDERS 6, THRASHERS 3: Sean Bergenheim, Blake Comeau and Jack Hillen each scored their first goals of the season to help New York break out of a two-game offensive drought and beat Atlanta. The Islanders (6-6-5) have been streaky. They went winless in their first six (0-3-3). But they had won four straight before taking a two-game losing streak into this game. - From Wire Reports

NHL standings, summaries, Page C11