Backup Ray Emery stopped 25 shots, and four Ottawa players scored against Rick DiPietro to give the Senators a 4-2 victory over the New York Islanders in the NHL on Friday.
Patrick Eaves, Zdeno Chara, Andrej Meszaros and Dany Heatley scored for the Senators, who are 3-0 against the Islanders this season. The teams will meet one more time this season, next Friday in Ottawa.
Emery improved to 7-1-1 for the Senators, who have an Eastern Conference-best 51 points heading into the NHL's two-day Christmas break.
PHOTO: AFP
New York got power-play goals from Jason Blake and Mark Parrish and 22 saves from DiPietro.
Ottawa took control early with three goals in a span of 2:42 in the first period.
Maple Leafs 2, Bruins 1
PHOTO: AP
At Toronto, Bryan McCabe and Darcy Tucker had goals, and Toronto regained its scoring touch on the power play and rallied to beat Boston.
McCabe also had an assist for the Maple Leafs, who netted both goals on the power play just one night after going 0-for-9 with the man advantage in a 4-1 loss at Boston.
Toronto had lost five of seven while going 6-for-47 (13 percent) with an extra man. McCabe, who leads the league with 28 power-play points, gave Toronto a 2-1 lead at 7:52 of the third period.
Ed Belfour made 25 saves for his 449th career victory.
Sergei Samsonov scored for the Bruins, who have lost five of seven. Hannu Toivonen took the loss, but made several impressive stops and finished with 26 saves.
Hurricanes 4, Panthers 3
At Raleigh, North Carolina, Justin Williams and Rod Brind'Amour scored third-period goals to help Carolina shake off a miserable night on the power play and beat Florida.
Eric Staal and Matt Cullen also scored for the Hurricanes, who won all five games on their 11-day homestand. Martin Gerber made 22 saves.
Olli Jokinen had two goals and an assist to lead the Panthers, and Gary Roberts also scored.
Carolina had won both previous meetings behind shutout efforts from Gerber. The Hurricanes stayed unbeaten against the Panthers despite coming up empty on their first 13 power-play chances and finishing 1-for-15.
Predators 5, Blue Jackets 4
At Columbus, Ohio, Paul Kariya had assists on three of Nashville's four first-period goals, and the Predators hung on to beat Columbus.
Nashville scored three power-play goals for its fifth straight win and eighth in 11 games.
Yanic Perreault and Scottie Upshall each had a goal and an assist for the Predators, who've scored a power-play goal in 18 of 19 games. Scott Hartnell, Vernon Fiddler and Adam Hall also scored. Steve Sullivan, who missed on a second-period penalty shot, added two assists.
Tomas Vokoun finished with 35 saves.
Jaroslav Balastik scored two power-play goals for Columbus (9-1-25), which has lost six in a row. Duvie Westcott added a goal and an assist for the Blue Jackets, losers of eight of 10 at home.
Sabres 4, Lightning 1
At Tampa, Florida, Ryan Miller made 30 saves, and Henrik Tallinder had a goal and an assist to lead Buffalo.
Miller stopped Martin St. Louis on a first-period breakaway. The Sabres, who had a seven-game winning streak halted in a 4-1 loss at Florida on Thursday, improved to 16-1-2 in their last 19 games.
Thomas Vanek, Chris Drury and Ales Kotalik also scored for Buffalo, which has won 10 of its last 11 road games.
Vinny Prospal scored for the Lightning, who have lost four straight and five of six. Tampa Bay played without center Vincent Lecavalier, who was given a one-game suspension for a high-sticking penalty Thursday.
Capitals 4, Canadiens 2
At Washington, rookie sensation Alexander Ovechkin scored his 20th goal of the season and Jeff Halpern had three assists for Washington.
Matt Pettinger gave Washington a 3-2 lead at 12:21 of the third off assists from Chris Clark and Halpern to help the Capitals win back-to-back games for only the second time this season.
Montreal's Steve Begin had tied it at 2 at 6:16 of the third period.
Dainius Zubrus gave Washington a 2-1 lead at 4:24 of the third period. Washington's Mathieu Biron tied it at 1 with a power-play goal at 2:11 of the third period.
Former Capital Richard Zednik gave Montreal a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal.
Capitals goaltender Olie Kolzig made 42 saves.
Flyers 5, Penguins 4
At Pittsburgh, Sidney Crosby scored twice 44 seconds apart early in the third period in his first game since being left off Canada's Olympic team, but Mike Knuble and Peter Forsberg scored two late goals to rally Philadelphia past Pittsburgh after blowing a three-goal lead.
Forsberg scored twice and Simon Gagne got his 25th goal -- and fifth in four games against Pittsburgh -- and an assist. Defenseman Dennis Seidenberg, who hadn't scored a goal all season, netted his first and added an assist by firing long shots.
The Penguins lost their 11th in 12 games and fell to 0-3 under new coach Michel Therrien. The Flyers won their first game of a franchise-record, 11-game road trip.
Thrashers 1, Devils 0
At East Rutherford, New Jersey, rookie Michael Garnett stopped 29 shots to record his first NHL shutout and Marian Hossa scored on a power play in the second period to lift Atlanta over New Jersey.
The victory was the fourth win in five games for the Thrashers (15-5-16), with the lone loss coming in a shootout against Washington on Thursday. The Devils (15-5-15) lost for the second time in three games since general manager Lou Lamoriello assumed the coaching duties.
Garnett preserved the shutout when he robbed John Madden from point blank range, making a glove save on a slap shot with 3:21 remaining.
Atlanta played without All-Star left wing Ilya Kovalchuk, who was suspended by the NHL for one game for throwing his stick into the stands on Thursday against Washington.
Wild 5, Avalanche 3
At St. Paul, Minnesota, Todd White and Marian Gaborik scored 26 seconds apart and Minnesota netted three goals in the final 5:12 to rally against Colorado.
Ex-Wild forward Antti Laaksonen had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche, who beat Minnesota 4-3 on Thursday in Denver.
With the game tied 2-2 late, White, Gaborik and Marc Chouinard scored for Minnesota. Marek Svatos got his team-leading 19th goal for the Avalanche.
Laaksonen tied it midway through the third period but Manny Fernandez made 11 of his 20 saves in the frame for the win.
Peter Budaj, making back-to-back starts for the first time in a month, had 19 saves.
Coyotes 3, Stars 2
At Dallas, Shane Doan and Dave Scatchard made the most of Phoenix's only shots in the third period, scoring 22 seconds apart to rally the Coyotes.
Phoenix won for a second straight night after losing a season-worst four in a row. Dallas had won three of four and eight of 10. This also was only the second home loss for the Stars in their last nine, with both defeats coming against the Coyotes.
Dallas got goals from Brenden Morrow and Steve Ott early in the third for its first lead. Then Phoenix tied it with 6:10 left when Doan scored.
The Stars failed to score on several power plays, including a wild final minute in which they pulled the goalie to have advantages of 5-on-3 and 6-on-4. Coyotes netminder Brian Boucher stopped 26 shots.
Phoenix interim coach Rick Tocchet is 2-2 in place of Wayne Gretzky, who is expected to return after Christmas.
Red Wings 3, Blackhawks 2, OT
At Chicago, Pavel Datsyuk scored a power-play goal with one second left in overtime to lift Detroit over Chicago. The goal was allowed after a video review confirmed the puck went in before the end of the period.
Nicklas Lidstrom and Kris Draper scored in the final 39 seconds of regulation, with Detroit goalie Chris Osgood on the bench for an extra attacker, to erase a 2-0 Chicago lead and force overtime.
Nikolai Khabibulin, who was in search of his first shutout with the Blackhawks, made 34 saves. Tyler Arnason and Martin Lapointe scored for Chicago, which lost its third straight.
Chris Osgood stopped 29 shots.
Just when it seemed that players might be getting used to the crackdown on obstruction, New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur is noticing a trend he finds disturbing.
"It's like preseason now," Brodeur said after Wednesday's 4-2 road loss to the New York Islanders in which 18 total penalties were whistled against both teams. "I guess maybe a memo was sent down to call games tighter again."
Brodeur might've been voicing an accurate assessment, or maybe simply showing frustration because New Jersey's power play has been anemic.
The Devils netted one man-advantage goal in eight chances against the Islanders, only their fourth power-play goal in their last 95 chances.
On the flip side, the Devils turned aside nine of New York's 10 opportunities, improving the percentage of the league's best penalty-killing unit on the road. It just taxed the Devils, who faced six short-handed situations one night earlier in a 3-1 victory at the New York Rangers.
"The number of penalties was one of the breaks of the game," Brodeur said. "Key guys were on the ice for a long time, and they were starting to run out of juice."
NASH WITHOUT CROSBY
Leading up to Team Canada's roster selections, there was talk whether Columbus forward Rick Nash, who missed most of this season, would make the squad based on past performance.
After all, three goals in six games in late December are not the kind of numbers that look great on an Olympic resume. However, an NHL-leading 41 goals in the 2003-2004 season carried Nash a long way.
He made the team, whereas 18-year-old Sidney Crosby didn't, even though he had put up 14 goals and 19 assists to lead Pittsburgh in scoring through 33 games.
Nash had 26 goals and 20 assists in 44 games, Thornton had 10 goals and set up 44 others in 40 games.
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