Roberto Luongo made 25 saves in his return to Florida, while Dmitry Kulikov and Jesse Winchester each scored power-play goals to lead the Panthers over the Buffalo Sabres 2-0 on Friday.
Luongo, acquired in a trade with Vancouver on Tuesday, was in net for the first time for Florida since April 18, 2006. Luongo previously played for Florida from 2000 to 2006.
It was the fourth shutout of the season for Luongo. His last was on Dec. 13 last year, a 4-0 win for Vancouver over Edmonton in which he made 19 saves. It was the first regular-season shutout for the Panthers since a 2-0 win over Carolina on March 11, 2012 in which Jose Theodore had 34 saves.
Photo: AFP
Michal Neuvirth stopped 42 shots in his first start for Buffalo since being acquired from Washington on Wednesday.
The Panthers won for just the second time in seven games. The Sabres lost their second in six games.
RANGERS 4, HURRICANES 2
Derek Stepan scored on a 5-on-3 power play with 2 minutes 45 seconds left in the game.
Rick Nash and Ryan McDonagh scored earlier for the Rangers, who beat Carolina for the 10th straight time, while Carl Hagelin added an empty-netter with 41 seconds to go.
Carolina took a pair of delay-of-game penalties in the final five minutes to give New York the two-man advantage. Stepan was set up for a short shot by Martin St Louis, who played his second game with the Rangers since being acquired from Tampa Bay on Wednesday.
Jeff Skinner scored on a penalty shot in the third period to give Carolina a 2-1 lead. Jordan Staal scored his 12th goal of the season for Carolina’s 1-0 lead in the opening period, but McDonagh tied it with New York short-handed.
RED WINGS 7, DEVILS 4
Johan Franzen had two goals and two assists, Gustav Nyquist a goal and three assists and David Legwand a goal and two assists.
Brendan Smith, Kyle Quincey and Drew Miller also scored for Detroit.
Adam Henrique had two goals and Patrik Elias and Jaromir Jagr also scored for New Jersey. Cory Schneider, who gave up seven goals for the first time in his career, stopped 25 shots.
FLAMES 4, ISLANDERS 3
Joe Colborne scored twice during a furious third period comeback for the Flames, who got three goals in less than five minutes.
Colborne got the comeback started at 11:29 when Mark Giordano’s point shot missed the net, but the puck caromed out sharply to Colborne. He fired it in the open side on goaltender Anders Nilsson.
Sean Monahan tied it at 14:22. Taking a slick pass from behind the net from T.J. Galiardi, Monahan went forehand to backhand to tuck his team-leading 19th goal past Nilsson.
Colborne completed the comeback, deflecting in Giordano’s slap shot at 15:41.
PENGUINS 3, DUCKS 2, SO
Evgeni Malkin scored the tying goal during a power play in the third period and Brandon Sutter got the deciding goal in a six-round shootout.
Deryk Engelland scored in the first period for the Penguins. Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves for his league-leading 33rd victory, after the Penguins rallied twice from one-goal deficits in a showdown between the leaders of the Eastern and Western conferences.
Corey Perry scored twice for the Ducks and Ryan Getzlaf had two assists, but the Ducks’ captain missed a chance to extend the shootout with a shot over the net — making him 0 for 6 this season in tiebreakers.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
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