NHL-Highlights of Thursday's National Hockey League games

Dec 31 (The Sports Xchange) - Highlights of Thursday's National Hockey League games: - - - Hurricanes 4, Capitals 2 Center Eric Staal's goal 51 seconds into the third period broke a tie and the Carolina Hurricanes went on to end the Washington Capitals' nine-game winning streak with a 4-2 home victory. Left wingers Phillip Di Giuseppe and Jeff Skinner also scored for Carolina (16-17-5), which avenged a 2-1 loss from 10 days earlier in this building. Washington (28-7-2) has an NHL-high 28 victories, but the Capitals were unable to match the franchise record for consecutive road wins. That streak ended at six games. - - - Penguins 5, Red Wings 2 Centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin scored 34 seconds apart in the third period to break a tie and send the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 5-2 come-from-behind road win against the Detroit Red Wings. The Penguins trailed 2-0 early in the second period before scoring five unanswered goals. Malkin also had two assists, defenseman Kris Letang had two goals and an assist and right winger Patric Hornqvist a goal and two assists for Pittsburgh. - - - Islanders 2, Sabres 1 Center Frans Nielsen and left winger Nikolay Kulemin scored, leading the New York Islanders to a 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres. Goalie Thomas Greiss made 42 saves for the Islanders (21-12-5). Center Ryan O'Reilly scored for the Sabres (15-19-4). - - - Wild 3, Blues 1 Erik Haula's goal midway through the third period snapped a tie to send Minnesota over St. Louis. Nino Niederreiter and Thomas Vanek also scored for the Wild, recorded just their second regulation win in 16 regular-season games in St. Louis dating back to 2007. Kevin Shattenkirk scored the Blues' lone goal. - - - Blackhawks 4, Avalanche 3 (OT) Jonathan Toews scored a power-play goal at 3:29 of overtime to lift Chicago over Colorado. Patrick Kane also had a power-play goal and added two assists for the Blackhawks, and Artem Anisimov and Andrew Desjardins also had goals. Scott Darling stopped 27 shots as the Blackhawks ended a four-game skid to the Avalanche. Carl Soderberg, Cody McLeod and Erik Johnson had goals for the Avalanche and Semyon Varlamov finished with 39 saves. - - - Stars 5, Predators 1 Jason Spezza had two assists and Tyler Seguin had two goals, and Antti Niemi stopped 33 of the 34 shots he faced in Dallas' victory against Nashville at American Airlines Center. After the Predators took a 1-0 lead midway through the second period when Craig Smith scored off a backhand, the Stars got five unanswered goals from Jamie Benn, Mattias Janmark, Patrick Eaves and two from Seguin. Pekka Rinne stopped 27 of 32 shots in the loss. - - - Coyotes 4, Jets 2 New Year's Eve felt like Shane Doan appreciation night at Gila River Arena. The Arizona Coyotes captain repaid his fans in full with a record-breaking performance against the Winnipeg Jets. Doan had two goals, two big hits and a critical screen on Oliver Ekman-Larsson's fifth game-winning goal of the season in Arizona's 4-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets. The first Doan goal, which came midway through the first period, was the 380th of the right winger's career, breaking Dale Hawerchuk's franchise record. Doan tied the mark with a hat trick Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks. Center Viktor Tikhonov also scored for Arizona (18-16-3), and goalie Louis Domingue made 35 saves. - - - Kings 4, Flames 1 The Los Angeles Kings finished off 2015 in style by beating the Calgary Flames 4-1 for their fourth straight win, all on the road. Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick, who stopped 23 of 24 shots he faced, got some help from left winger Milan Lucic to record his 21st win of the season. Late in the second period, Lucic reached behind him to deflect a shot taken by Flames defenseman TJ Brodie wide of the Kings' net with the blade of his stick. Right winger Marian Gaborik, Lucic, and left wingers Andy Andreoff and Tanner Pearson also scored for the Kings (24-11-2), who also beat the Canucks 5-0 in Vancouver on Monday and the Oilers 5-2 in Edmonton the next night for a successful trip through western Canada. - - - Ducks 1, Oilers 0 Two days after beating the Flames 1-0 in Calgary, the Anaheim Ducks rolled into Rexall Place and beat the Edmonton Oilers by the same score Thursday night. The Ducks, having re-invented themselves as a suffocating defensive team that struggles to score goals but doesn't surrender much either, played their game to perfection. They frustrated the Oilers all night, barely giving Edmonton any room to breathe in the neutral zone. Anaheim took a 1-0 lead on the power play at 11:58 of the first period when center Ryan Getzlaf scored just his third goal of the season. - - - (Editing by Andrew Both/Nick Mulvenney)