NHL roundup: Caps’ Alex Ovechkin closes history with hat trick

Alex Ovechkin scored his 31st career hat trick and Logan Thompson made 40 saves to lead the Washington Capitals to a 5-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday night in Las Vegas.

Ovechkin is 29 goals shy of passing Wayne Gretzky’s NHL scoring record of 894 goals after tallying the 864th, 865th and 866th goals of his career. It also marked the 176th multi-goal game of Ovechkin’s career, 13 shy of Gretzky’s record, and moved him into a tie for the league scoring lead (13) with Florida’s Sam Reinhart and Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl.

Jakob Chychrun and Jakub Vrana also scored and Dylan Strome and Aliaksei Protas each had two assists for Washington, which improved to 6-0-0 against Western Conference teams with its first regular-season win in seven tries at the T- Mobile Arena.

Brett Howden and Keegan Kolesar each scored for Vegas, which had a two-game winning streak snapped. Ilya Samsonov finished with 20 saves.

Hurricanes 4, Blues 1

Martin Necas scored two goals and earned two assists to lead Carolina past St. Louis in Raleigh, NC

Necas extended his point streak to 13 games. He has 10 goals and 17 assists during that span. Eric Robinson had a goal and two assists for the Hurricanes, who have won 11 of their last 13 games. Andrei Svechnikov also scored a goal and goalkeeper Pyotr Kochetkov made 29 saves to earn his ninth win in 11 starts.

Jake Neighbors scored a goal and Joel Hofer made 20 saves for the Blues, who are 1-4-1 in their last six games.

Rangers 2, Kraken 0

Jonathan Quick made 24 saves for his second straight shutout and the 62nd of his career as New York defeated host Seattle.

Alexis Lafreniere and Zac Jones scored for the Rangers, who won their second straight game and improved to 10-0-0 when scoring first this season. Quick, in his 18th NHL season, has won all four of his starts to begin the campaign.

Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer stopped 21 of 23 shots as the Kraken snapped a four-game winning streak. Grubauer made his first start since November 5th. He missed four games with an undisclosed injury due to an “unfortunate accident” at home, according to Kraken coach Dan Bylsma.

Predators 5, Canucks 3

Steven Stamkos scored twice and Zachary L’Heureux scored his first career goal as visiting Nashville beat Vancouver.

Roman Josi collected a goal and an assist, Gustav Nyquist scored once and Filip Forsberg had two assists for the Predators, who snapped a three-game skid. Goalkeeper Juuse Saros made 24 saves.

Aatu Raty, Elias Pettersson and Kiefer Sherwood scored for the Canucks, who have just three wins in 10 home games this season. Danton Heinen recorded two assists and goalie Kevin Lankinen, who joined the Canucks this season after two campaigns with the Predators, stopped 16 shots.

–Field-level media