Blue Jackets 5, Capitals 4 (OT)

Sergei Bobrovsky looked as poised facing 58 shots as he did before the game when he calmly walked down the hallway in a buttoned-up beige trenchcoat.

On the ice, Bobrovsky stood out even more. The goaltender with a history of playoff struggles looked like his two-time Vezina Trophy-winning self in making 54 saves as Columbus beat Washington on Sunday night on Matt Calvert's overtime winner to take a 2-0 lead in the first-round playoff series.

"He's our best player and he was our best player by a mile tonight," said Calvert, whose one-handed rebound 12:22 into overtime sent the Blue Jackets into a frenzy. "It makes us confident. When you've got him making up for your mistakes, it's always good. He's been doing it all season."

The playoff version of Bobrovsky of years past was a confounding nightmare compared to his elite play during the regular season: 3-10 with a 3.63 goals-against average and .887 save percentage. Through two games this year, the second of which coach John Tortorella called "one of the best goaltending performances" he has seen, the reserved Russian has stopped 81 of 88 shots to send Columbus home for Game 3 Tuesday in a place it's never been before.

The Blue Jackets had never led a playoff series until Thursday night. With "Bob" locked in like never before in the Stanley Cup playoffs, they're two victories away from advancing to the second round for the first time in franchise history.

"I would say your career is a journey and you learn some things here and there," Bobrovsky said. "It doesn't matter what's in the past. When we're gonna play third game, it doesn't matter what happen tonight. Each moment is huge right now, and you just have to be ready."

Columbus appears ready for anything against an experienced opponent with a history of playoff disappointments that has now blown two-goal leads in consecutive games. Just like in Game 1 when charging and tripping calls on Tom Wilson and Andre Burakovsky cost the Capitals, they were done in by penalties on Wilson and Devante Smith-Pelly that led to goals by Cam Atkinson and Zach Werenski.

Alex Ovechkin scored twice on the power play and T.J. Oshie tied it with 3:35 left to give Washington a chance. When Philipp Grubauer was pulled for allowing four goals on 22 shots, Braden Holtby made seven saves, but now the Metropolitan Division champions are in a hole only 49 of 361 teams (13.6 percent) have dug out of to win a best-of-seven series.

"Right now, in hard position, but it's going to be fun when we bounce back and ... tie the series," Ovechkin said.

Coach Barry Trotz, who said he'd let his decision on who starts Game 3 simmer, added that the Capitals are "not going away." Through two games, the Blue Jackets have shown they aren't, either.

Penalty trouble almost cost the Blue Jackets as much as the Capitals, but they got to leave celebrating after Calvert's OT goal held up to an offside review by the NHL situation room. Replays showed Calvert was just onside before scoring to make the Blue Jackets just the fifth team in NHL history to overcome a multi-goal deficit to win the first two games of a playoff series.

"Luckily, I got the rebound, had one hand on my stick and the rest is history," Calvert said. "Two games in overtime, that can really crush a team."

History says Calvert is right. The Capitals are the sixth team to lose Games 1 and 2 of a best-of-seven series in overtime, and the previous five have all lost.

Penguins 5, Flyers 1

The kitschy light-up bracelets flickered in the darkened arena and another packed house roared "Crosby sucks! Crosby sucks!" Here's the thing Philly fans haven't yet accepted about Sidney Crosby over the last 13 years, he really doesn't — and especially not against the Flyers.

Crosby matched a postseason-best with four points on a goal and three assists to help Pittsburgh silence the raucous crowd and beat Philadelphia for a 2-1 lead in the first-round series.

"When we needed to, we made some good plays, we got some big saves and that's what you need this time of year," Crosby said.

It's the path Pittsburgh took the last two seasons all the way to parade routes in June.

Crosby, who has 93 points in 63 career regular-season games against Philly, shut up the orange-and-black die-hards with a wraparound goal off a turnover midway through the first.

Crosby had a hat trick in Game 1 and the three-time Stanley Cup champion showed no sign of easing up against his nemesis.

The Flyers haven't won a playoff series since 2012 and pulled out all the theatrical stops in their return to the postseason after a one-year absence.

Flyers fans even stuck photos of the hated Crosby inside the urinals throughout the arena that had to guarantee they were more on target with their shots than anyone on the home team's roster.

"It's not the first building that's happened in," Crosby said, smiling. "I don't know if they stole that idea from someone else."

Two of the so-called fiercest rivals in the NHL have provided three lopsided games: Pittsburgh's 7-0 win in Game 1 and Philadelphia's 5-1 victory in Game 2 could about qualify as nail-biters in this series.

Game 4 is Wednesday night in Philadelphia.

Crosby scored his fourth goal of the series in the first period, and Derick Brassard, Evgeni Malkin and Brian Dumoulin scored in the second to make it 4-0. Malkin and Dumoulin scored 5 seconds apart.

"After the third goal, I should've taken a timeout," Flyers coach Dave Hakstol said. "That would've been one thing to stop that momentum."

Justin Schultz made it 5-1 in the third on Pittsburgh's third power-play goal of the game.

Matt Murray stopped 26 shots to make it stick.

Brian Elliott, yanked in Game 1, had another rough outing and might need to borrow fellow Wells Fargo Center tenant Joel Embiid's black mask to have a better look at the puck.

Elliott, who had 21 saves, was stunned at how easily the Penguins scored twice in 5 seconds.

"Guy walking down main street," he said.

The Flyers ran a video package full of bloody fights, big goals and memorable moments between the teams through the years with a "Bitter Rivals" caption. The Penguins could have just looked in their reflection from the 2016 and 2017 Cups and shrugged off the idea the Flyers are in their league.

Brassard scored on the power play just 2:48 into the second. The Pens hit with back-to-back stunning goals that put the icing on the urinal cake: Malkin scored on a one-timer and Dumoulin off the faceoff beat Elliott through the five-hole for a 4-0 lead.

Crosby won the faceoff to set up the goal and had both assists, naturally, on the goals that matched the NHL playoff record for fastest two scores by one team.

"He thrives in that environment," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. "He has a comfort level in that environment. When stakes are high, in an away building, he tends to play his best. He has an ability to stay in the moment. He doesn't get rattled. He doesn't get fazed by adversity. That's why he's an elite player and he's so accomplished."

At that point, each team had 12 shots.

The Flyers, who played more like the team that lost 10 straight games over November-December, had no shot at pulling off the comeback. Travis Sanheim scored late in the third for the Flyers' lone goal.

"It's not time to panic here," Flyers captain Claude Giroux said.

Wild 6, Jets 2

The Minnesota Wild returned home from Winnipeg and regrouped to roar back in their first-round playoff series.

The Jets were a late arrival for Game 3 in more ways than one.

Mikael Granlund and Zach Parise had power-play goals in the first period for the spark that was missing on the road, and the Wild scored four times in the second to beat the Jets.

"We're here to play," goalie Devan Dubnyk said, "and we're fully capable of pushing hard."

The Wild will try to tie the best-of-seven series 2-2 when they host Game 4 on Tuesday night.

"They have been physical so we've got to push back," said Jordan Greenway, who scored his first NHL goal just 20 seconds after Eric Staal sent a wrist shot past a struggling Connor Hellebuyck. Fighting pucks all night, Hellebuyck was pulled for Steve Mason at the second intermission.

Matt Dumba and Marcus Foligno bookended the furious middle frame with goals for the Wild, who won a postseason home game for only the second time in their last nine contests. Mikko Koivu and Nick Seeler each had two assists and Dubnyk made 29 saves, keeping the crowd loud all night.

Blake Wheeler and Tyler Myers scored for the Jets.

"We're in a series here," said Hellebuyck, who made 16 saves. "We're going to lose one once in a while. It's how we respond to the next one."

After overtaking the Wild with two third-period goals to win 3-2 in Game 1 and dominating the action in Game 2 on the way to a 4-1 victory, the Jets hit some minor turbulence. The blizzard that blanketed the Twin Cities forced their charter flight to land in Duluth on Saturday afternoon and return to Winnipeg for the night. The Jets skipped the customary morning skate and arrived Sunday about eight hours before faceoff.

Whether or not the Jets were actually affected by the weather hardly mattered, given the way the Wild greeted them after the lackluster performance in Game 2.

"I don't know if it made us worse, but I can say for a fact that it certainly didn't make us better," Jets coach Paul Maurice said.

The only shot the Jets sent on target over the first 11-plus minutes was the one by Wheeler that went in, a wide-angle attempt on the power play and a softie if there ever was one in keeping with Dubnyk's uncanny tendency to let fluke goals get by him while making many more high-degree-of-difficulty stops. Dubnyk also gave up a goal on the first shot in a couple of games late in the regular season.

"And then he shut the door. So I wasn't worried," Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. "I thought, 'OK. This is going to work.'"

The Wild snapped right back. Koivu took the initial shot that set up both goals in the first period, with Granlund waiting for the rebound on the first one . Parise freed himself from a tie-up in traffic with Jacob Trouba to move in position for the redirect of the second one .

Myers brought the decibel level down with his slap shot that cut the lead to 3-2 , but the Wild killed consecutive penalties with only about a minute between power plays soon after that to retake momentum. Then came the goals by Greenway and Staal, and the rout was on.

"When that second period started, we weren't able to get faster," Wheeler said. "And that's when the game changed. They stuck with it, and we just weren't able to get to our speed we needed."

The second period went from bad to worse for the Jets, when Myers was checked by Foligno and caught his skate at the bottom of the boards. He needed help off the ice and into the locker room and did not return. Maurice had no update on the defenseman's condition, but without elaborating he suggested the injury could have been avoided.

"Didn't love it," Maurice said, referring to both the hit and the outcome.

There was a lot to like, at least, about the Wild's performance. All four lines produced at least one goal, and the rookie defenseman Seeler had a breakout game in the back with four blocked shots and a breakaway shot that hit the post and barely stayed in front of the line.

"That's playoff hockey. You need everybody," Staal said. "You don't win unless you have four lines and all your defensive core going."

Golden Knights 3, Kings 2

James Neal scored the tiebreaking goal with 5:37 to play, and Vegas rallied from a third-period deficit to move to the brink of the expansion franchise's first playoff series victory with a win over Los Angeles.

Cody Eakin tied it with 13:50 left, and William Karlsson scored 21 seconds after Neal's goal in a third-period flurry for the Golden Knights, whose storybook debut season just keeps getting more exciting and more outlandish.

After opening their first postseason series with two home wine, the hockey upstarts from the desert took a 3-0 series lead by coolly winning their first road playoff game in front of an angry sellout crowd at Staples Center, where two recent Stanley Cup banners hang above the ice.

Marc-Andre Fleury made 37 saves for the Golden Knights, who became the first team to take a 3-0 series lead in this postseason.

Vegas will go for a sweep in Game 4 on Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

Alex Iafallo scored his first career playoff goal in the first period for the Kings, who haven't won a playoff game at Staples Center since they last raised the Stanley Cup in June 2014. Anze Kopitar added a tipped goal with 2:04 to play, but Los Angeles couldn't get the equalizer.

Jonathan Quick stopped 23 shots, but the Golden Knights' three-goal flurry doubled their goal total against him from the first 201 minutes of play in this series.

Neal, the veteran goal scorer claimed from Western Conference champion Nashville in last summer's expansion draft, put the Golden Knights ahead when he walked in and beat Quick between the legs with a snap shot.

Karlsson then converted Reilly Smith's pass from the corner with a one-timer and the third career playoff goal for the former Anaheim prospect.

Vegas' offensive burst broke open a third straight game of tense, defense-dominated playoff hockey between a franchise that won two Cups while perfecting that style and another that didn't exist a year ago.

Drew Doughty played more than 27 1/2 minutes in the star defenseman's return to the Kings' blue line following a one-game suspension for hitting William Carrier in the series opener. Doughty also had partner Jake Muzzin back by his side after he missed the previous seven games with an upper-body injury.

The Golden Knights opened the series with the first two playoff victories in franchise history before their usual raucous fans on the Strip. The Kings kept it close in both games, losing in double overtime in Game 2, but never managed to take a lead on Vegas because they only scored one goal in the two combined games.

Back at Staples Center, the Kings looked more comfortable — but only marginally in this razor-thin series.

The Kings took their first lead of the series 13:14 into Game 3 when Iafallo roofed a shot behind Fleury so quickly that it was initially waved off by the officials, who eventually reversed themselves. Iafallo, the speedy Los Angeles rookie who became a surprise top-liner this season, hadn't scored a goal in his last 12 games since March 3, and he was scratched for Game 2.

Kopitar and Dustin Brown got assists on Iafallo's goal, earning their first points of the postseason. Los Angeles' top-end offensive talent was slow to emerge on the road, where the Knights' persistent two-way game and Fleury's goaltending ruled.

Neither team got much offensive traction in a scoreless second period, but the physical tone of the series remained. Erik Haula butt-ended Kopitar in the face after a cross-check, and Jonathan Marchessault was penalized for retaliating to a hit from Doughty, who then mock-clapped for Marchessault and pointed to his own head.

But the Knights kept pressing and tied it after a prolonged sequence of dominance in which Colin Miller's shot hit the post before Eakin buried Ryan Carpenter's cross-ice pass.