Dustin Brown has been a thorn in the Canucks' side throughout the series and proved to be so again, scoring his fourth goal of the NHL post-season 6:30 into the third period as the Kings stretched their advantage in the best-of-seven quarter-final to 3-0.

The Canucks, last year's beaten Stanley Cup finalists, must now their remaining four games to progress - starting with Wednesday's encounter in LA.

Danny Briere, Matt Read and Max Talbot each scored two goals as the Philadelphia Flyers moved to the brink of a sweep of the Pittsburgh Steelers with an 8-4 win in a bad-tempered match.

Wayne Simmonds and Claude Giroux also scored for the Flyers in a game which saw 38 separate penalties including a fight between Sidney Crosby Giroux - one of many scraps which littered the contest.

Goals from Shea Weber, Kevin Klein and Sergei Kostitsyn gave the Nashville Predators a 3-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings, edging them 2-1 ahead in the series.

Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg scored for Detroit.

Stephen Weiss netted twice as the Florida Panthers evened their series with the New Jersey Devils at 1-1 courtesy of a 4-1 victory.

Marcel Goc also scored to give Panthers a 3-0 lead before the end of the second period, while a New Jersey rally sparked by Travis Zajac and Ilya Kovalchuk fell short as Tomas Fleischmann scored Florida's fourth with a second to play.