Dan Cleary broke a scoreless tie in the third period and Manny Legace handed Colorado its first shutout of the National Hockey League season, leading Detroit past the Avalanche 3-0 on Saturday.
Legace (22-6-2) stopped 28 shots. His fourth shutout of the season and 10th of his career left just three teams who haven't been held without a goal this year: Detroit, Dallas and San Jose.
Detroit broke the scoreless tie with Cleary's third goal of the season. He took a nifty pass out of the right corner from Henrik Zetterberg and pushed it stickside past David Aebischer (20-12-2), who had stopped the first 21 shots he faced, at 5:40 of the third period.
PHOTO: AP
Blues 4, Stars 3, OT
In St. Louis, Barret Jackman scored in overtime to give the Blues their second straight victory.
Jackman's third goal of the season also snapped the Stars' six-game winning streak. He took a pass from Keith Tkachuk and his shot deflected off of Stephane Robidas' stick and past Marty Turco.
Dallas got goals from Jon Klemm, Jason Arnott and Jere Lehtinen in regulation.
Blues goalie Curtis Sanford (8-12-4) made 25 saves while Turco (28-14-2) made 23 saves in the loss.
Canadiens 2, Bruins 0
In Montreal, Andrei Markov scored in his return to the lineup and Cristobal Huet got his first shutout for the Canadiens.
Markov, who missed eight games with a shoulder injury, scored a power-play goal 10:22 into the third period, putting a rebound of Alex Kovalev's shot off the left post into an open left side.
Huet, acquired from Los Angeles following the 2003-2004 season, made 35 saves for his fifth career shutout, his first since Feb. 23, 2004 against Nashville with the Kings. The 30-year-old Frenchman made several big saves throughout and caught a break late when Sergei Samsonov hit the left post during Boston's seventh power-play opportunity with less than 1 minute remaining.
Sheldon Souray scored a short-handed goal into an empty net with 21.2 seconds remaining.
Islanders 5, Penguins 4, SO
In Pittsburgh, Miroslav Satan notched his seventh career hat trick and added a shootout goal to help the Islanders get the win.
Satan, the first player in the shootout, made several moves on Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury before slipping a low backhander behind him. Trent Hunter, New York's next shooter, also was successful on his backhand. Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro capped a 44-save performance by stopping Mark Recchi and Michel Ouellet in the shootout.
Rangers 4, Flyers 3, OT
In Philadelphia, Jaromir Jagr scored 1:24 into overtime to lift New York to its third straight victory.
The Rangers have won seven of their last nine to move one point ahead of the Flyers for first place in the Atlantic Division.
Petr Sykora scored with 41.1 seconds left in regulation to force the extra period and Marcel Hossa and Michael Nylander also scored for New York, which trailed the Flyers by nine points less than one month ago.
Mike Knuble had two goals and Jeff Carter also scored for struggling Philadelphia, which is 3-4-3 since going 8-2-1 on an 11-game road trip.
With the goalie pulled in the final minute, Sykora scored the tying goal by deflecting a slap shot from Martin Rucinsky.
Maple Leafs 4, Devils 2
In Toronto, Ed Belfour made 36 saves and Alex Ponikarovsky scored twice, leading the Maple Leafs to just their second victory in 12 games.
Tomas Kaberle and Chad Kilger also scored for Toronto, which was mired in its worst stretch of hockey since winning three times in a 24-game span from Jan. 11 to March 8, 1996.
Toronto jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first 12 minutes as Ponikarovsky scored his 13th and 14th goal of the season and Kaberle scored on a two-man advantage.
New Jersey's Brian Gionta and John Madden scored within 35 seconds of each other in the third period.
Thrashers 6, Panthers 4
In Atlanta, Ilya Kovalchuk scored his NHL-leading 36th goal and the Thrashers snapped a seven-game losing streak.
Peter Bondra had two goals, and Marc Savard a goal and two assists for Atlanta.
Patrik Stefan's ninth goal with 6:53 remaining gave the Thrashers a 5-3 lead before Bondra made it 6-3 on the power play.
The score was tied at 3 when Kovalchuk, from about eight feet out, beat Roberto Luongo high on the goaltender's stick side at the 16:01 mark of the second.
Luongo dropped to 2-6-1 against Atlanta after stopping 21 of 27 shots.
Sabres 2, Senators 1, SO
In Buffalo, New York, Thomas Vanek scored the winning goal in the shootout for the Sabres.
In the second round, Vanek faked a shot before depositing a wrister into the top right corner past Ottawa goalie Dominik Hasek.
Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller then stopped Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson's attempt in the final round to get the win, which pulled the Sabres within four points of the division-leading Senators.
Ales Kotalik scored in regulation for Buffalo, which won its fifth straight.
Bryan Smolinski scored for the Senators, who have lost three of their last four games.
Lightning 5, Capitals 0
In Tampa, Florida, John Grahame made 29 saves for his third shutout in his past four games for the Lightning.
Grahame stopped Alexander Ovechkin's shot from the right circle with 5 minutes to play, one of his key saves in his fifth shutout of the season and 12th overall.
Brad Richards had two goals and Ruslan Fedotenko had a goal and two assists for Tampa Bay, which has won seven of nine. The Lightning also got goals from Ryan Craig and Norman Milley.
The Capitals have lost five of seven.
Predators 6, Blackhawks 0
In Nashville, Tennessee, Scott Hartnell picked up his first NHL hat trick and added an assist, while Tomas Vokoun made 40 saves for his second shutout of the season for the Predators.
Nashville scored four goals in the first period, chasing starting goaltender Adam Munro after the third goal.
Yanic Perreault, Greg Johnson and Martin Erat also scored for Nashville.
Vokoun improved to 27-11-5 with his 14th career shutout.
Wild 6, Coyotes 4
At Glendale, Arizona, Marian Gaborik and Wes Walz each scored twice in Minnesota's four-goal second period.
Walz added a pair of assists, and Todd White and Pierre-Marc Bouchard also scored to help the Wild win their second straight following a three-game losing streak.
Geoff Sanderson scored twice, and Mike Ricci and Mike Comrie added goals for Phoenix. The Coyotes lost for the third time in four games.
Mighty Ducks 2, Sharks 0
At San Jose, California, Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 34 shots and Todd Fedoruk scored in the second period of Anaheim's second shutout win in San Jose in 10 days.
Teemu Selanne scored his team-leading 26th goal into an empty net with 32 seconds to play for the Ducks, who got their fourth victory in five games with another defensive gem against their Pacific Division rivals.
Three days after San Jose posted a 6-4 victory in Anaheim, Giguere led another whitewash at the Shark Tank. On Jan. 26, Ilya Bryzgalov was in net for the Ducks' 2-0 victory -- San Jose's only other shutout loss all season.
Oilers 3, Canucks 1
At Edmonton, Alberta, Mike Morrison made 16 saves and Ryan Smyth and Raffi Torres scored power-play goals to help the Edmonton snap a five-game home losing streak with a win over Vancouver.
Jarret Stoll also scored to help the Oilers move within two points of the first-place Canucks in the Northwest Division. Vancouver has lost four of seven games on a road trip that began in St. Louis on Jan. 23.
Morrison, making his third start in four games in place of Jussi Markkanen, improved to 9-2-0, allowing only Daniel Sedin's goal late in the second period.
The upstart Carolina Hurricanes made the first bold splash among the Stanley Cup contenders Monday by trading for Doug Weight, a playmaking center. The Hurricanes acquired Weight and left wing Erkki Rajamaki from St. Louis for forward Jesse Boulerice, center Mike Zigomanis, the rights to forward Magnus Kahnberg, first- and fourth-round draft picks this year and a fourth-round pick in 2007.
Most of the bigger trades traditionally come in the days leading up to the deadline, which this year is March 9. Why did the Hurricanes act now?
"I think that there was probably going to be an awful lot of interest down the road, and then you're getting into whether or not you're the one that's going to get him," coach Peter Laviolette said Friday at Continental Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey, before the Hurricanes lost to the Devils, 3-0. It was Weight's first game with the team.
"I think it says we already knew where we were," Laviolette said. "We were first overall in the league at the time we made the trade. Doug just gives us a piece that can help contribute for the rest of the year."
The Hurricanes (37-12-4), one of the biggest surprises in the Eastern Conference, along with the Rangers and Buffalo, were leading the 30-team league with 78 points entering Sunday's game in Boston.
Laviolette, who will coach the US team at the Olympic Games this month in Turin, Italy, said: "A lot of times, you make a trade at the trade deadline, and that player comes in and hardly figures out how to get to the rink, and then the season could be over. And we wanted it just to be more than that. We wanted him to be a contributor as we chased down first overall in the league and then feel really comfortable as we enter the playoffs."
Weight, a 14-year veteran, is in the last season of a contract that will pay him $5.7 million this season. He could have said no to the trade. But after waiting a day to think it over, Weight waived his no-trade clause for the chance to go from the last-place team overall to the first-place one.
"I didn't think I was going anywhere before the Olympics," said Weight, 35, who will compete in his third Olympics for the US. "I think the fact that Carolina stepped up and offered so much for me to St. Louis at that time kind of showed me that they really wanted me."
Hale BATTLES KIDNEY AILMENT
Devils defenseman David Hale had never heard of IgA nephropathy, a kidney ailment, until he received the diagnosis in 2001, after his freshman season at the University of North Dakota.
To this day, Hale said he had never heard of another athlete having what he described as a case of an extended flu. IgA (short for immunoglobulin A) nephropathy, also called Berger's disease, is a rare chronic disease that damages the filtering units of the kidney. There is no cure.
The disease is most commonly found in men from their teens to their 30s. Twenty percent to 40 percent of patients develop end-stage kidney failure about 20 years after finding they have it.
"I don't think it's as bad as it sounds," Hale, 24, said. "I don't know how rare it is as opposed to anything else."
Hale played 65 games for the Devils in 2003-2004, finishing tied for second with Paul Martin among the team's defensemen with a plus-12 rating.
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