Best of NHL: Maple Leafs fall to Blackhawks in OT, but move 9 points ahead of Flyers

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TORONTO -- Ryan Hartman scored with 17 seconds left in overtime to lead the Chicago Blackhawks past the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 on Saturday night.

John Hayden notched his first NHL goal, and Corey Crawford stopped 25 of 26 shots for Chicago, which holds the top spot in the Western Conference with 97 points following their fourth straight win.

Auston Matthews had a goal to snap a seven-game drought, while Frederik Andersen made 37 saves for the Maple Leafs, who hold the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with 79 points.

Toronto took a 1-0 lead in the first period when William Nylander took a quick pass from Matthews and then sent it right back to Matthews, who crashed the front of the net and redirected a shot through Crawford's pads.

Matthews inched within two goals of Wendel Clark's franchise rookie record (34 in 1985-86) with the goal. The 19-year-old rookie hadn't registered a goal or point since Feb. 28 in San Jose (see full recap).

Skinner helps Hurricanes stay hot against Predators
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Jeff Skinner scored in each of the first two periods and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Nashville Predators 4-2 Saturday night.

Jordan Staal added a goal and an assist while Jaccob Slavin had two assists for Carolina, which swept the two-game season series and snapped Nashville's three-game winning streak. Elias Lindholm scored a short-handed empty-netter with 25.6 seconds to go.

Carolina won the teams' other meeting, 3-2 in a shootout on Nov. 5 in Nashville.

Skinner had his fifth multi-goal game and sixth multi-point effort of the season.

Hurricanes goalie Eddie Lack, starting his second straight game, stopped 27 shots for his first two-game winning streak with Carolina. The Hurricanes improved to 4-0-2 in their last six games.

Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg scored for Nashville, and Juuse Saros had 33 saves (see full recap).

Capitals clinch playoff spot by beating Lightning
TAMPA, Fla. -- T.J Oshie had three goals and an assist, Justin Williams and John Carlson had early third-period goals, and the Washington Capitals clinched a playoff spot by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-3 on Saturday night.

Oshie scored twice, including an early power-play goal, as the Capitals took a 2-0 lead midway through the first. He completed the hat trick with an empty-netter during the final minute. Oshie has 10 goals and 19 points in 14 games against Tampa Bay.

Williams had a redirection goal 3:14 into the period before Carlson swatted a thigh-high puck home to make it 4-2 at 5:30.

Washington also got four assists from Nicklas Backstrom, and Braden Holtby stopped 26 shots.

Nikita Kucherov had two goals, and Alex Killorn had the other goal for the Lightning. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves (see full recap).

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