MONTREAL – Alexei Yashin scored twice and tied a career high with his fifth career five-point game to lead the New York Islanders to a 6-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
Yashin, who had just eight points in his previous 22 games, set up goals by Arron Asham and Oleg Kvasha before scoring his 17th and 18th goals of the season in the second. He set up Dave Scatchard’s empty-net goal for his third assist of the game.
Jason Blake also scored and Garth Snow made 32 saves for New York, which got its 78th point to tie Boston for seventh place in the East.
Donald Audette, Andreas Dackell and Jason Ward scored for Montreal, which lost its third straight and is winless in its last seven home games.
Blue Jackets 4, Leafs 3
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Tyler Wright scored his third goal of the game off a give-and-go from Ray Whitney with 43.8 seconds left in overtime as the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 on Thursday night.
Wright’s third career hat trick – and second of the season – gave him a career-high 18 goals this season and his first in 19 games. Rick Nash also scored for Columbus.
Mats Sundin, Owen Nolan and Aki Berg had goals for Toronto, which is 2-0-2-2 in its last six.
Avalanche 2, Sharks 0
DENVER – Patrick Roy made 29 saves in his fourth shutout of the season, and 65th of his career, as the Colorado Avalanche beat the San Jose Sharks 2-0 on Thursday night in a game that was postponed a day because of a heavy snowstorm.
Bates Battaglia and Adam Foote scored for the Avalanche, who snapped a two-game losing streak – their longest since mid-January.
Miikka Kiprusoff, starting in goal because Evgeni Nabokov missed his third straight game with a back injury, had 18 saves and allowed both goals before being replaced by Vesa Toskala late in the game.
NBA
Pistons 113, 76ers 85
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. – Detroit beat streaking Philadelphia so badly the Pistons didn’t even need to play their starters the whole game.
Chauncey Billups scored 29 points Thursday night despite playing only three minutes in the fourth quarter to lead six double-figure scorers as the Pistons beat the 76ers 113-85 for their sixth win in seven games.
Allen Iverson scored just five points.
– snapping a 186-game streak of scoring in double figures. It was his lowest output since scoring five points on March 2, 2000, against Washington. The Pistons held him to a career-low four points on March 23, 1998.
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