TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Conor Garland scored two goals for the second consecutive game and the Columbus Blue Jackets defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 on Tuesday night.
Kiril Marchenko, Dante Fabbro and Ivan Provorov also scored for Columbus, who improved to 15-2-3 in the past 20 games. Blue Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzlikins made 15 saves and registered his second assist of the season.
Gage Goncalves and J.J. Moser scored for Tampa Bay, which fell to 2-6 since the Olympic break and has just one win in the past seven games. Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 26 saves. The Lightning have allowed 34 goals in the past six games and six power-play goals in the past two games.
Garland, who was acquired from the Vancouver Canucks at the trade deadline, had not scored a goal in his previous 24 games with Vancouver. But after scoring twice on Monday against Los Angeles, Garland had two more on Tuesday, including an insurance power-play goal in the third period.
Tampa Bay took the first-period lead when Nikita Kucherov sent a fake-shot pass across the ice to Goncalves for the one-touch pass to Victor Hedman, whose slap shot was tipped by Goncalves at 13:38.
Provorov and Garland scored goals 30 seconds apart to give the Blue Jackets the lead. Provorov sent a center point shot toward goal that hit Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh and deflected into the net at 5:57. Garland scored his third in the past two games at 6:27.
Marchenko scored a power-play goal at 11:42. Moser cut the deficit to one with a wrist shot at 16:23 of the second period. Fabbro scored into an empty net with 4:32 left.
Blue Jackets: At Florida on Thursday.
Lightning: Host Detroit on Thursday.
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL
Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Ivan Provorov (9) celebrates with the bench after scoring against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the second period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Columbus Blue Jackets center Sean Monahan (23) splits between Tampa Bay Lightning center Brayden Point (21) and defenseman Charle-Edouard D'Astous (51) during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
Columbus Blue Jackets right wing Conor Garland (83) celebrates after scoring against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, March 10, 2026, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is remaining relatively calm on Wednesday, even as the price of oil continues to swing.
The S&P 500 edged down 0.1% and could be headed for another day of relatively modest moves following a wild stretch caused by the war with Iran's effects on oil prices. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 339 points, or 0.7%, as of 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.
Since the start of the war, sharp moves for oil prices have cascaded through financial markets worldwide and caused big swings up and down, sometimes by the hour. Oil prices briefly spiked to their highest levels since 2022 this week because of the possibility that production in the Middle East could be blocked for a long time, which in turn raised worries about a surge of debilitating inflation for the global economy.
The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that its members will release 400 million barrels of oil from stockpiles they’ve set aside for emergencies. Such moves push downward on oil prices in the near term, but it’s likely that only a full resumption of the flow of oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf area would fully ease the market. That has investors worldwide anxiously awaiting the end of the war.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 3% to $90.38. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude gained 3.7% to $86.53 after briefly dropping toward $82.
Worries are centered on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s coast where a fifth of the world’s oil sails on a typical day. The war has halted most of that traffic, which means storage tanks for crude in the region are filling up because the oil has nowhere else to go. That in turn is pushing oil producers to say they’re cutting their output.
The United States said it took out more than a dozen minelaying Iranian vessels Tuesday, and the Islamic Republic vowed to block the region’s oil exports, saying it would not allow “even a single liter” to be shipped to its enemies.
All this is happening at a time when inflation was already higher in the United States than anyone would like. A report released Wednesday showed that U.S. consumers paid prices for groceries, gasoline and other costs of living that were 2.4% higher in February than a year earlier.
To be sure, that inflation figure was the same as the prior month's and better than the 2.5% that economists expected, but it remains above the 2% target the Federal Reserve has set for the economy. It also doesn’t include the spike in gasoline prices that’s happened this month because of the war.
“Looking forward, we expect a spring bulge in inflation due to the spike in energy prices tied to the Iran war, the duration of which will dictate the landing spot for headline inflation by year end,” according to Gary Schlossberg, global strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
High inflation combined with a stagnating economy would create a worst-case scenario called “stagflation” that the Federal Reserve has no good tools to fix. Stagflation fears are rising not just because of higher oil prices but also because of weakness in hiring by U.S. employers.
On Wall Street, Oracle jumped 12.4% to one of the market’s biggest gains. The tech giant reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also raised its forecast for revenue growth next fiscal year, in part because of demand for cloud computing for artificial-intelligence training and inferencing.
Campbell’s sank 8.2% after the soup company reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than expected. It was hurt by struggles for its snack business, and it cut its forecasts for revenue and profit this fiscal year.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell in Europe following better performances in Asia. Germany's DAX lost 1.1%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.4%.
In the bond market, Treasury yields rose because of the upward pressure from climbing oil prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.19% from 4.15% late Tuesday.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Gennaro Saporito works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Friday, March 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Friday, March 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Federico DeMarco works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Drew Cohen works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), rear center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, rear left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
