NHL Roundup : Nordiques Playing So-So, Except When Champion Canadiens Come to Town

It has not been a good season for the Quebec Nordiques, who thought this would be the year they would take charge of the Adams Division.

Instead of leading the division, the Nordiques are a poor fourth in a three-team race for the title.

About the only time the Nordiques enjoy themselves is when their bitter rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, come to Quebec. In the Colisee, it is the Nordiques, not the Canadiens, who play as if they were the Stanley Cup champions.

Michel Goulet scored his 30th goal and assisted on another as the Nordiques beat the Canadiens, 4-1, for the third time in a row at home this season.

The Nordiques, who did not lose at home to the Canadiens last season either, had their four goals before Claude Lemieux knocked in a rebound early in the third period to deprive Quebec goalie Mario Gosselin of a shutout.

Anton Stastny opened the scoring for the Nordiques on a pass from Goulet at 3:25 of the first period. It gave Stastny either a goal or an assist on eight out of nine goals for the Nordiques. The string ended when defenseman Risto Siltanen scored to make it 2-0 with seven seconds left in the first period.

Goulet, making his bid for a fifth consecutive 50-goal season, has scored in four games in a row.

Edmonton 4, St. Louis 2--Mark Napier and Kevin Lowe scored in the first period at St. Louis, and the Oilers celebrated the return of goaltender Grant Fuhr with an impressive performance.

Fuhr, in his first start since Jan. 17, when he injured his knee, stopped 21 shots. He protected a 2-1 lead until Jari Kurri and Craig MacTavish scored in the first five minutes of the third period.

Kurri took a pass from Wayne Gretzky and scored his 34th goal just a minute into the final period.

Vancouver 4, Calgary 2--Brent Peterson scored only his fourth goal of the season midway through the last period at Calgary to break a tie and send the Canucks on their way to victory.

The game was marred by a bench-clearing brawl in the second period that resulted in the ejection of seven players, four of them Flames.