Brad Marchand is breathing a sigh of relief, although he may not be fully off the hook quite yet.

The Boston Bruins winger was ejected from Tuesday's playoff-clinching win over Tampa Bay after a spear on Jake Dotchin, a play he admits was ill-advised, to say the very least.

Related: Bruins' Marchand ejected for spearing Lightning's Dotchin

"It was an undisciplined penalty, there's no question about that," Marchand admitted after the game, per Joe MacDonald of ESPN. "It could have cost the team a very important game, but the guys did a great job of rallying and having a huge game."

As to whether he expects to hear from the NHL, Marchand said he has no idea, but he did acknowledge the game misconduct could be considered time served.

The Bruins have two games remaining in the regular season.

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On a pillow.

Taylor Hall set up his Devils teammate John Moore with a perfect saucer pass in overtime Tuesday, and Moore made no mistake, as New Jersey beat the Philadelphia Flyers 1-0.

For Flyers goaltender Steve Mason, it's the first point he's earned against the Devils in 10 career starts. Maybe next year he'll beat 'em.

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Tuukka Rask suffers no fools.

One week ago, questions abounded in regards to his ability to carry the Boston Bruins back to the postseason following a one-game absence due to injury.

There was even at least one call for interim head coach Bruce Cassidy to start Anton Khudobin - who did indeed step up in Rask's brief absence - until the backup lost a game, something he frequently did in the first half of the season.

But since his return to the crease March 28, Rask has posted a perfect 4-0-0 record with two shutouts and a .972 save percentage.

His latest clean sheet, earned in a playoff-clinching win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday, set a new career high at eight, topping the seven he recorded in 2013-14, the season in which he won the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goalie.

He concurrently recorded a career-high 38th win of the season, with his previous benchmark of 37 also coming in 2013-14.

Rask's season save percentage isn't quite as strong as it was three years ago, but neither is Boston's blue line.

In recent days, Rask has stepped up when his team needed him most, temporarily silencing those who seem to have forgotten what he's capable of.

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PITTSBURGH - Patric Hornqvist picked up his 20th goal of the season, Matt Murray finished with 37 saves and the Pittsburgh Penguins sped past the slumping Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 on Tuesday night.

Jake Guentzel and Carter Rowney also scored for Pittsburgh. Brian Dumoulin added his first regular season goal in more than two years as the Penguins moved three points ahead of Columbus in the race to have home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Pittsburgh won its third straight to inch closer to opening its Stanley Cup defense at home thanks in large part to Murray and offensive contributions from unexpected places.

Brandon Dubinsky scored short-handed for Columbus. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 shots but the Blue Jackets dropped a season-high fourth straight and have ceded control of the second seed in the Metropolitan Division to Pittsburgh with three games to go.

The teams are almost assured of facing each other when the playoffs begin next week, a rematch from a 2014 first-round series the Penguins won in six taut games and seemed to signal Columbus' arrival as a legitimate contender.

Three years later, Columbus has officially arrived, though the team that spent the better part of 60 minutes chasing the Penguins around sold-out PPG Paints Arena hardly looked like the one that came in 2-0-1 over its first three meetings of the season. The Blue Jackets tried to push the Penguins around, rattling the boards in the process but not Pittsburgh.

The Penguins' fourth line helped bolster a largely lifeless performance in a victory over Carolina on Sunday and the momentum carried over. Rowney put Pittsburgh in front with 1:09 left in the first period when he planted himself in front of Bobrovsky and redirected a feed from Scott Wilson over Bobrovsky's shoulder.

Hornqvist doubled Pittsburgh's lead just before the game's midway point, though linemate Tom Kuhnhackl did all the work. Kuhnhackl tracked down a loose puck in the defensive zone the raced end-to-end down the left wing, fending off Oliver Bjorkstrand in the process before sliding a crossing pass to a streaking Hornqvist that found the open net.

Dumoulin, who scored a pair of goals during last year's run to the Cup, reached the back of the net in the regular season for the first time since Dec. 15, 2014, when he saved a clear at the edge of the blue line, carried the puck behind the Columbus net then saw his wraparound smack off Cam Atkinson and in, ending a 151-game regular season goalless drought.

When Guentzel deflected a Justin Schultz shot from the point by Bobrovsky 33 seconds into the third, the Penguins were in firm control.

Dubinsky's 12th of the year midway through the third spoiled Murray's shutout bid but served as little solace for the Blue Jackets.

NOTES: Columbus rookie D Zack Werenski did not play while dealing with an upper-body injured suffered in a loss to Washington on Sunday. ... Penguins D Trevor Daley skated on Tuesday morning and is hopeful to return before the postseason begins. Daley hasn't played since undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery on Feb. 23. ... The Penguins went 0 for 3 on the power play. The Blue Jackets were 0 for 1. ... Pittsburgh's 109 points tied the 2013-14 team for the second-highest total in club history.

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For the first time since the 2013-14 season, the Boston Bruins have booked their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, courtesy of a 4-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.

This most recent victory - Boston's sixth in a row - improved the Bruins' record to 18-7-0 since the decision was made to fire Claude Julien in favor of interim bench boss Bruce Cassidy, who's made a good case to have that tag removed sooner rather than later.

The Bruins, however, were forced to play 40-plus minutes without leading scorer Brad Marchand, who was ejected near the end of the first period for spearing Jake Dotchin.

Boston last advanced to the postseason as Presidents' Trophy winners in 2014. But they missed out on the postseason by two points in 2015, and came up short again last season after finishing level in points with Detroit but losing the tiebreaker.

What's yet to be determined is whether Boston will secure an Atlantic Division spot or fall to the second wild card. The former would mean a first-round date with Toronto or Ottawa, while the latter would set up a date with the top team in the Metropolitan Division, which will likely be Washington.

Either way, the Bruins will certainly be among the final 16.

As for the Lightning, they're still technically in the race, but their chances took a massive hit with this loss.

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Alex Ovechkin is well on his way to becoming the highest-scoring Russian NHLer of all time.

With an assist Tuesday in Toronto, the Washington Capitals captain broke a tie with Alexander Mogilny for second in all-time points by a Russian. No. 8 now trails only Sergei Fedorov.

Ovechkin's already his country's most successful goal-scorer, having passed Fedorov in November 2015, and is the only Russian to hit the elusive 500-mark in the NHL.

The Maple Leafs have been victimized heavily by Ovechkin over the years. The 31-year-old now has 33 goals and 60 points in 42 games against the blue and white.

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Brothers don't shake hands. Brothers gotta hug.

Prior to the Minnesota Wild's home game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, visiting assistant captain Jordan Staal presented big brother Eric Staal with a painting to commemorate his recent 1,000th career appearance.

Eric, of course, played 909 of those games with the Hurricanes, serving as longtime captain, winning a Stanley Cup, and writing the offensive record books in the process.

Here's a closer look at the painting.

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NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was a guest on Sportsnet's "Prime Time Sports" on Tuesday evening, and the hot topic of conversation was, of course, the league's decision to not attend the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Here are the major takeaways from the 18-minute interview:

• Bettman was clear in saying that the league's announcement Monday isn't some sort of posturing effort in order to get the NHL to the games. The clubs don't want to attend - period.
  • "We aren't looking for a negotiation," he said.
• Bettman reiterated that after taking part in five Olympics, the league no longer has interest in shutting down its season with no benefit of sending its players to the games.
  • "It's not like we didn't try to embrace the Olympics, but not only has it not done anything for our game, particularly here in North America, where our franchises play, it's been damaging to the seasons in terms of the competitiveness, in terms of the compression of the season, (and) injuries to players."
• The NHL, Bettman said, only had to ask itself one question: What's the point?
  • "If the IOC doesn't value our contributions, the fact that we lend players with contracts worth over $3 billion and shut down our season at a very important and prime time, when no other sports league would do it, why are we doing this?"
• Bettman cited the fact the league cannot promote itself at the games, and that the NHL has no access to signature moments like Sidney Crosby's golden goal in 2010, as one of its prime concerns over going.
• The commissioner also revealed the league asked for Olympic hockey to be played as part of the summer games.
  • "We made other suggestions. If the IOC would move the Olympics hockey tournament to the summer, that would be great, we'd be thrilled to have our players participate because then it doesn't affect our season. ... We asked to go to the summer and they said no, and why did they say no, because hockey in terms of hours of programming and the numbers of seats sold to the events is probably too important to the Winter Olympics and their economics. And so, again, nobody is suggesting anything to give the teams a reason to reconsider their position. And that's okay, because we know the clubs don't want to go and we weren't and aren't looking to renegotiate."

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Your daily dose of Erik Karlsson doing things many hockey players can't.

The Ottawa Senators captain cruised down the boards on the right wing, stopped up, and impossibly picked the top corner for his 17th goal of the season.

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Unfortunately for the Boston Bruins, Brad Marchand is up to his old tricks.

With his team looking to secure its first playoff spot in three seasons, Marchand - who's become an elite offensive winger - was assessed a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct for a spear to the midsection on Tampa Bay's Jake Dotchin on Tuesday.

Given Marchand's history of high jinks, NHL Department of Player Safety may give this another look, with the Bruins having only two games remaining at the conclusion of the tilt with the Lightning.

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