Jason Blake had two goals and two assists, and rookie Trent Hunter had his third two-goal game, leading the streaking New York Islanders past the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-1 Wednesday.
The Islanders closed out their most successful December in 20 years by winning their sixth in a row, three on the road. They beat the rival New Jersey Devils three times during the month -- more wins than they had in December and January combined last season.
"They are playing better than anyone in the league right now," Penguins coach Eddie Olczyk said.
Oleg Kvasha and Dave Scatchard also scored for the Islanders, while Tom Kostopoulos scored for Pittsburgh.
Goaltender Sebastien Caron, who had 31 saves Monday, was pulled after allowing five goals on 22 shots in the first two periods.
"You're going to have nights like this in the course of the season," Olczyk said. "One of these nights is tough to overcome."
Garth Snow turned aside 21 of 22 shots for the Islanders.
Lightning 2, Panthers 2
In Tampa, Florida, Roberto Luongo made 40 saves, including two on Vincent Lecavalier late in regulation, to help the Florida Panthers tie the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Lightning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin stopped 30 shots, including a pad save on Stephen Weiss' rebound from in close a minute into overtime.
Brad Richards and Cory Stillman had power-play goals for Tampa Bay, which had gone 0-for-23 with the man advantage over the previous five games.
Viktor Kozlov and Mike Van Ryn scored for Florida.
Sharks 1, Blue Jackets 0
In Columbus, Ohio, Alyn McCauley scored with 4:59 left and Evgeni Nabokov made 26 saves for San Jose.
It was Nabokov's fourth shutout this season for the Sharks and the 21st of his career.
Marc Denis stopped 28 shots for Columbus, which has lost six in a row at home. The Blue Jackets tied their worst home stretch, going 0-6-1-1 in their last eight games at Nationwide Arena.
Sabres 7, Capitals 1
In Buffalo, New York, Maxim Afinogenov had his first three-goal game in the NHL and Miroslav Satan added his fifth hat trick to lead Buffalo over Washington.
Andrew Peters also scored his first NHL goal, and Martin Biron won his first game since Nov. 28 for the Sabres, who have won three of four.
It was the first time the Sabres had two players with hat tricks in the same game since Alexander Mogilny and Yuri Khmylev did it against the New York Rangers exactly 11 years earlier on Dec. 31, 1992.
Red Wings 6, Thrashers 5, OT
In Detroit, Henrik Zetterberg scored his second goal of the game 2:24 into overtime, lifting Detroit over Atlanta.
Zetterberg also added an assist, and Brendan Shanahan, Ray Whitney and Mathieu Schneider each had a goal and an assist. Tomas Holmstrom scored the other Red Wings goal, and Pavel Datsyuk and Brett Hull each had two assists.
Ilya Kovalchuk had a goal and two assists for Atlanta, which also got goals from Slava Kozlov, Ronald Petrovicky, Zdenek Blatny and Daniel Tjarnqvist.
Mighty Ducks 3, Hurricanes 1
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Ruslan Salei scored a fluke short-handed goal, and Anaheim won consecutive road games for the first time in two months.
Goaltender Kevin Weekes has been Carolina's most valuable player in the first half of the season, but his blunder on the power play gave the Mighty Ducks the go-ahead score less than two minutes after the Hurricanes tied it.
Avalanche 2, Flames 1
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