Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, left, celebrates his power-play goal with Joe Thornton and Travis Boyd during Toronto’s 7-3 win Thursday night against the Ottawa Senators. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP
TORONTO — Auston Matthews scored his 15th and 16th goals to pad his NHL lead and had two assists to help the league-leading Toronto Maple Leafs thump the last-place Ottawa Senators 7-3 on Thursday night.
Matthews has scored those 16 goals in just 17 games played, and has scored 15 times in his last 13 contests.
Toronto beat Ottawa for the second straight night after blowing a 5-1 lead in a 6-5 overtime loss in the series opener Monday night.
Mitch Marner had a goal and three assists, Joe Thornton collected a goal and two assists, William Nylander had a goal and an assist, and John Tavares and Ilya Mikheyev also scored.
PENGUINS 4, ISLANDERS 1: Sidney Crosby picked up his sixth goal of the season, Tristan Jarry stopped 31 shots and Pittsburgh won at home.
Teddy Blueger, Jason Zucker and Bryan Rust also scored for the Penguins, who collected just their third regulation victory of the season as they bounced back from a dismal loss to Washington on Tuesday.
Semyon Varlamov made 33 saves, and Brock Nelson scored late to help the Islanders avoid being shut out, but New York’s three-game winning streak came to a halt.
CAPITALS 3, SABRES 1: Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson and Conor Sheary scored, Vitek Vanecek made 22 saves and Washington beat visiting Buffalo for its second consecutive victory.
BLUE JACKETS 3, PREDATORS 0: Elvis Merzlikins made 32 saves in his first start since coming off injured reserve, Cam Atkinson scored his team-leading seventh goal and Columbus won at home.
RANGERS 3, FLYERS 2: Kaapo Kakko and Artemi Panarin scored in the shootout to give New York a victory at Philadelphia.
Colin Blackwell and Brendan Smith scored in regulation for the Rangers, who snapped a four-game skid.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Joel Farabee scored for the Flyers, who were playing for the first time since Feb. 7 because of COVID-19. Philadelphia was without six players who are still in the COVID-19 health and safety protocol, including captain Claude Giroux, whose streak of playing in 328 consecutive games ended.
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