OTTAWA – Wade Redden scored 1:34 into overtime to lift the league-leading Ottawa Senators to a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers on Thursday night.
Daniel Alfredsson also scored and Marian Hossa became the second Senators player to score 40 goals in a season as Ottawa opened a three-point lead over Dallas in the NHL’s overall standings with 98 points.
Pavel Bure scored his second penalty shot goal of the season for New York, and Petr Nedved got his 24th goal with 5:16 left in the third to send the game to overtime.
Canadiens 4, Thrashers 2
ATLANTA – Richard Zednik had a goal and an assist and Marcel Hossa added a pair of assists as the Montreal Canadiens beat the Atlanta Thrashers 4-2.
Flyers 5, Hurricanes 3
PHILADELPHIA – Tony Amonte had a goal and an assist in his Philadelphia debut and Keith Primeau scored the go-ahead goal 59 seconds into the third period as the Flyers beat the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3.
Avalanche 5, Blue Jackets 1
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Joe Sakic scored his 12th career hat trick, all three goals coming in the first period of the Colorado Avalanche’s 5-1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets .
Sakic has one four-goal game and 11 three-goal performances .
in his 15 years in the NHL.
Colorado has won 19 of its last 25 games overall.
Patrick Roy had 20 saves as the Avalanche moved to 11-0-1-0 in the series with Columbus. Roy left the crease frequently in the second period, almost as if he were trying to keep the game interesting.
Steve Reinprecht assisted on all of Sakic’s goals. Greg de Vries and Milan Hejduk each had a goal and an assist.
David Ling scored his second goal of the year for the Blue Jackets, who have lost their last four games and are just 2-10-1-1 in the last 14.
Sakic’s first goal came at 6:04 as his shot from the right dot found the net through heavy traffic. He took a drop pass from Reinprecht and beat Columbus goaltender Marc Denis high on the stick side for No. 2.
Several hats found their way to the ice after his 24th goal of the season at 16:21 of the period. Rob Blake carried the puck into the offensive zone and dropped it to Reinprecht, whose cross-ice pass to Sakic at the left wing left him with an almost empty net.
Sakic’s three goals came in the span of 10:17.
Hejduk’s 31st goal came in the opening minute of the second period after Alex Tanguay pulled the puck away from a defender near the left boards and fed Hejduk, who was all alone in the slot.
Roy seldom was tested, but Denis was at his best during a two-minute 5-on-3 after Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre was called for roughing and Jody Shelley for cross-checking midway through the second period. Sakic’s bid for a fourth goal, a blast from the top of the right circle, was gloved by Denis.
The Avalanche’s de Vries made it 5-1 in the third period, netting a rebound after Denis and defenseman Jaroslav Spacek mishandled the puck as they tried to clear it.
Notes: The fastest an Avalanche player has ever picked up three goals in a game is 2:17 by Alain Cote against Boston in 1982, when the franchise was in Quebec. … Colorado was starting a three-game road trip and Columbus was playing the middle game of a three-game homestand. … Columbus C Espen Knutsen was checked into the boards in the third period and immediately went to the dressing room with a sprained wrist.
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rick DesRochers. Primeau put in the rebound for his 17th goal.
Amonte then made it 4-2 with a wrist shot from the slot. Radim Vrbata scored his second goal in two nights to pull the Hurricanes within a goal at 12:58, but Dmitry Yushkevich iced it for the Flyers with a slap shot from the right point with 2:48 remaining.
John LeClair, appearing in his first game since dislocating his right shoulder at Pittsburgh on Nov. 27, and Eric Desjardins also scored for the Flyers, who snapped a three-game losing streak.
Jeff O’Neill and Bruno St. Jacques scored the other goals for the Hurricanes, who were outshot 37-15.
St. Jacques, acquired from the Flyers as part of the deal for Sami Kapanen on Feb. 7, had tied the game 2-2 late in the second period. With the teams skating 4-on-4, St. Jacques one-timed a cross-ice pass from Kevyn Adams.
LeClair, who missed 47 games after undergoing surgery on Dec. 4 to repair a torn labrum, had put the Flyers ahead earlier in the second period when he deposited a wraparound into an open net.
The Hurricanes took a 1-0 lead 4:16 into the game when a wrist shot by Ron Francis through a screen bounced off O’Neill’s skate into the net. It was O’Neill’s team-leading 28th goal.
Philadelphia tied it on another deflection. This time a shot from the right boards by Donald Brashear was redirected by Desjardins, who poked the puck through his legs off Carolina defenseman Sean Hill and off the shoulder of DesRochers.
Notes: The Flyers won the season series over Carolina 2-0-2, the first time they went unbeaten against the Hurricanes since 1998-99. … Philadelphia extended its unbeaten home streak against Carolina to seven games (6-0-1). … Desjardins played in his 633rd game with the Flyers, tying Rod Brind’Amour for ninth place on the club’s career list. The Flyers are 5-0 when Desjardins scores a goal. … O’Neill leads Carolina with 55 points.
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scored for the Canadiens, and Andrei Markov added an empty-net goal with 24 seconds left.
Jose Theodore had 26 saves a game after shutting out the Florida Panthers.
Atlanta center Patrik Stefan scored with 5:35 remaining to cut the margin to one. Dan Snyder also scored off an assist from Dany Heatley for the Thrashers, who started a five-game homestand by falling behind 2-0 in the first period.
Stefan, who left the game earlier after hurting his wrist, took a pass from Ilya Kovalchuk with his back to the net, but he spun around and backhanded the puck past Theodore.
Snyder scored just 1:09 into the second to cut the lead to 2-1 with his ninth goal of the season. Heatley corralled the puck deep in his end, then skated past three defenders in the neutral zone. When he got hemmed in just inside the blue line, he backhanded a pass to Snyder, who beat Theodore with a wrist shot.
The goal came four seconds after Montreal center Saku Koivu completed a penalty.
The Canadiens regained the two-goal margin late in the second, with Dackell skating in and taking a pass from Joe Juneau right in front of goaltender Pasi Nurminen, who appeared not to see the wrist shot until the puck was in the net.
Montreal tough guy Gordie Dwyer, who has only one point and 65 penalty minutes in 23 games, left in the first period after a fight with rookie Garnet Exelby. Exelby, playing his second game, knocked down Dwyer with a straight left-handed punch, and Dwyer’s head bounced off the ice.
He needed assistance to get to the bench, but he later returned.
Notes: Thrashers C Marc Savard missed the game with the flu, and D Uwe Krupp was out with an injured hamstring. … Atlanta fell to 11-11-4-0 since coach Bob Hartley was hired Jan. 14. … The Canadiens finished their road trip with a 3-2-0-1.
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open left side of the net.
Alfredsson tied it later in the second and Marian Hossa got his 40th at 13:21 of the third.
Anson Carter, who made his Rangers debut after he was acquired from Edmonton on Tuesday, set up Nedved for the tying goal just 1:23 later. Carter skated down the right side and passed to Nedved, who drove to the net and beat Lalime from in close.
New York is 5-2-2-1 in its last 10 games, claiming 13 of a possible 20 points.
The game was scoreless through the first period and Ottawa was about to complete killing off two consecutive penalties in the second when Alexei Kovalev fed a 60-foot pass up the middle from the Rangers’ zone to Bure. After getting behind the Senators at center ice, the speedy Russian was swept off his feet by Radek Bonk and referee Blaine Angus immediately pointed to center ice.
But after Bure’s successful penalty shot, Alfredsson tied the game with his 25th goal of the season 14:36 into the second.
Hossa scored for the second straight game 13:21 into the third period to put the Senators up 2-1, but the Rangers came back to tie it on Nedved’s goal just 1:23 later.
Notes: Bure’s goal was the eighth successful penalty shot in 29 overall attempts in the NHL this season. It was the third penalty shot against Ottawa this season. Rookie G Martin Prusek stopped Boston’s Glen Murray on Nov. 9 before denying the New York Islanders’ Dave Scatchard three nights later. … Alexei Yashin was the other Senator with 40 goals, doing it in 1998-99 and 2000-01. … Carter was the Oilers’ leading scorer with 55 points in 68 games, including 25 goals and 30 assists. … Smolinski, acquired from Los Angerles on Tuesday, had 18 goals and 20 assists in 58 games with the Kings. … The Senators are 7-1-7 in overtime this season.
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