NHL Roundup : Islanders at Least Manage to Get a Tie at Edmonton

The New York Islanders’ winless string at Edmonton was stretched to five games Wednesday night, but they achieved a moral victory of sorts.

Brent Sutter scored on a power play early in the third period to give the Islanders a 3-3 tie with the Stanley Cup champion Oilers.

It was in Edmonton last spring that the Islanders’ dreams of a fifth consecutive hockey championship became a nightmare. In the final round, the Oilers easily swept all three home games to win the championship. In the three games the Oilers outscored the Islanders, 19-6.

In their first meeting on Oilers’ ice this season, in December, the Oilers skated to a 6-4 victory.

Wayne Gretzky, the man largely responsible for beating the Islanders in the playoffs, opened the scoring with his 45th goal and assisted on Mike Krushelynski’s goal in the second period that gave Edmonton a 3-1 lead. Bryan Trottier’s 18th goal put the Islanders within one late in the second period.

The Islanders, missing six regulars because of injuries, lost their leading scorer, Mike Bossy, with a back injury, 10 minutes into the game.

The Oilers were without Jari Kurri and Kevin McClelland, who are hurt and center Mark Messier, who served the first game of his 10-game suspension.

Washington 5, Pittsburgh 4--They have been calling center Bobby Carpenter of the Capitals a budding superstar all season. As the regular season passes the halfway point, it appears it is time to drop the budding.

Carpenter, in just his 44th game, scored his 32nd goal halfway through the third period at Pittsburgh to send the Capitals into sole possession of first place in the tough Patrick Division.

Bob Gould broke a 3-3 tie with his ninth goal earlier in the period, but it took Carpenter’s goal to overcome the second of the game by Pittsburgh’s talented rookie, Mario Lemieux. When Lemieux narrowed the lead to 5-4, there were still five minutes left.

Carpenter spent most of those five minutes on the ice helping to make sure the improving Penguins didn’t get a tying goal. The victory put the Capitals one point ahead of Philadelphia.

“It seems to me,” Coach Bryan Murray of the Capitals said, “that just about every night Bobby does something to win a hockey game. It isn’t that he didn’t play well in his first three seasons, it’s just that now, at 21, he has taken charge.”

Carpenter credits experience. “Management stayed with me,” he said. “They knew I was young and would make mistakes. Fortunately, I learned to play because they didn’t yank me every time I did something wrong.”

Detroit 1, Philadelphia 1--Goaltender Ed Mio, recently brought back from the minors, stopped 32 shots at Detroit, but had to settle for a tie.

In the third period, trying to protect a 1-0 lead, Mio faced 18 shots. One, by Steve Zezel, got past him. Mio had made sprawling saves of back-to-back shots during a wild scramble at the goalmouth, but was flat on the ice when Zezel got the second rebound and lifted the puck into the net.

The goal offset veteran Darryl Sittler’s sixth of the season late in the second period.

Buffalo 2, New York Rangers 2--Another goaltender, the Rangers’ Glen Hanlon, turned in a sparkling performance, but also had to settle for a tie.

Hanlon stopped 45 shots, four of them in overtime at New York, but Gilles Hamel scored on a slapshot from the right faceoff circle early in the final period to get Buffalo even. Hanlon, who faced 17 shots in the first period, gave up a power-play goal to Gil Perreault in the first period.

The Sabres, who have lost only once in the last 14 games, are unbeaten in their last five on the road.

Chicago 6, Winnipeg 3--Rick Paterson, who scored only twice in the previous 42 games, set a Black Hawk record in this game at Chicago when he scored short-handed goals 2 1/2 minutes apart.

The two goals, which easily broke the record, climaxed a five-goal first period that enabled the Black Hawks to win for the second time in seven games and regain first place in the Norris Division. The record set by Darryl Sutter in 1981 was 43 minutes.

Minnesota 4, St. Louis 4--Tom McCarthy scored the North Stars’ third goal of the final period with just 74 seconds remaining at Bloomington, Minn. The Blues went into the final 20 minutes with a 4-1 lead.

Bob Rouse and Tony McKegney also scored in the third period for the North Stars. McKegney’s score came just a minute before McCarthy tied the game.