Miroslav Satan snapped a scoreless tie in the third period and Rick DiPietro stopped 32 shots for the New York Islanders, who welcomed back suspended forward Chris Simon and won their sixth straight with a 1-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
DiPietro was perfect in snapping the Lightning's 10-game road run of earning at least one point (7-0-3). Tampa Bay is last in the NHL's Eastern Conference with 57 points.
Sabres 5, Maple Leafs 1
PHOTO: AP
At Toronto, Ales Kotalik scored two goals to help the Buffalo Sabres win for the 10th time in 14 games.
Brian Campbell, Jaroslav Spacek and Derek Roy also scored for the Sabres, who are on a 10-2-2 run and moved into a tie with the New York Rangers for sixth place in the East.
Pavel Kubina scored for the Leafs, who are eight points out of a playoff spot and seem unlikely to qualify.
Sharks 3, Flyers 1
At Philadelphia, Douglas Murray and Milan Michalek scored goals 42 seconds apart in the third period for San Jose to send the Flyers to their ninth straight loss.
Jonathan Cheechoo scored his 17th goal for the Sharks, who snapped a five-game losing streak. Evgeni Nabokov made 26 saves for San Jose.
Mike Knuble scored his 22nd goal for the slumping Flyers, who started the month as one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
Penguins 5, Canadiens 4
In Montreal, Evgeni Malkin scored midway through the third period and got his second assist of the game on Sergei Gonchar's power-play goal moments later to help the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Canadiens.
Malkin, who assisted on Ryan Whitney's goal 6:46 in to become the first player to reach 80 points this season, scored on a breakaway 10:22 into the third to tie it after Pittsburgh -- which led 2-0 and 3-1 -- blew a two-goal margin to fall behind 4-3.
Gonchar restored the Penguins' lead for Pittsburgh's second power-play goal of the game 15 seconds after Montreal's Alex Kovalev was sent off for interference.
Hurricanes 5, Thrashers 3
At Raleigh, Scott Walker had a goal and two assists for Carolina.
Ray Whitney, Ryan Bayda and Sergei Samsonov scored second period goals, and Keith Aucoin also scored for the Hurricanes. Cam Ward made 25 saves.
With the victory, the Hurricanes extended their division lead to four points over the second-place Washington Capitals and five over the third-place Thrashers.
Blue Jackets 3, Senators 2, SO
At Ottawa, Rick Nash scored in regulation and in a shootout for Columbus.
Pascal Leclaire stopped Daniel Alfredsson and Antoine Vermette in the shootout after Columbus came back from a goal down in the third period.
Nash and Nikolai Zherdev were successful against Ray Emery.
Sergei Fedorov had the other goal in regulation for the Blue Jackets.
In other NHL action on Thursday it was:
* Bruins 5, Panthers 4, SO
* Canucks 3, Predators 2, SO
* Kings 5, Blues 1
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