NHL Roundup : Blackhawks Finally Win on the Road, 6-3

The Chicago Blackhawks took just four shots but scored twice in the second period Saturday night at Hartford, Conn., then scored three times in the last period to beat the Whalers, 6-3.

The victory ended the Blackhawks’ five-game winless string on the road and prevented the Whalers from strengthening their grip on first place in the Adams Division.

It seems that every time the Whalers seem to have the division race under control, they run into problems.

Going into Saturday night’s game, the Whalers had 14 of their remaining games at home and had two more to play than their closest pursuers, the Montreal Canadiens.

The Whalers were 16-6-4 at home, and appeared headed for another victory when they took a 3-2 lead on Sylvain Turgeon’s power-play score nine minutes into the second period. At this point, Chicago had only one shot on goal in nine minutes. The shot was a goal by Rich Preston. The Blackhawks tied the game on a fluke goal. A centering pass by Dave Donnelly hit teammate Mike Stapleton’s skate and caromed into the net.

From then on, the Blackhawks dominated. Ed Olczyk put them ahead to stay at 7:40 of the third period with his 12th goal.

“Everytime we get a chance to take command of the race,” Coach Jack Evans said, “we do something like this. It just wasn’t meant for us to win easily.”

It was only the eighth victory in 31 road games for the Blackhawks, who took over third place in the Norris Division.

Boston 1, Minnesota 0--Rookie goaltender Bill Ranford turned in a strong performance at Bloomington, Minn., to enable the Bruins to end a five-game losing streak.

Ranford stopped 45 shots, 20 in the second period when teammate Cam Neely scored the game’s only goal.

Ranford had lost three consecutive games by one goal. His third shutout of the season took care of that.

He barely survived the second period when two of the North Star shots struck him in the head. But he played the third period and stopped 15 shots.

New York Islanders 6, Montreal 5--The Islanders turned to defensemen at Uniondale, N.Y., to get their stagnant offense going and end a six-game winless streak.

The Islanders had scored only nine goals in the six games. Defenseman Ken Leiter scored on a power play in the first period to get the Islanders on the board. In the second period, Randy Boyd, a backliner recently recalled from Springfield of the American League, scored a short-handed goal to trigger a four-goal outburst.

Another defenseman, Gerard Diduck, also scored in the flurry that gave the Islanders a 5-2 lead. The Canadiens did not get closer than two goals again until Bobby Smith scored with just one second left to complete his hat trick.

It wasn’t all fun, though, for Boyd. In the final minute of the game, a puck flew onto the Islander bench and hit Boyd in the face. It required 20 stitches to close the wound.

The victory pushed the Islanders above .500 (26-25-8) and gave them sole possession of second place in the Patrick Division.

New Jersey 6, Pittsburgh 5--Andy Brickley scored twice in the first period at Pittsburgh, one when his team was short-handed as the Devils dealt a severe blow to the Penguins’ playoff hopes.

The Devils now trail the fifth-place Penguins by only a point in the Patrick Division.

The Penguins, winless in the last five games, are four points out of fourth place, the final playoff position. They were outplayed throughout but scored three times in the last 3:47 to make it look close.

Penguin Coach Bob Berry summed up his team’s performance in one word: “Disgraceful.”

St. Louis 4, Quebec 3--Greg Paslawski scored 83 seconds into overtime at St. Louis after the Nordiques had rallied from a 3-0 deficit to force the extra session.

Paul Gillis scored with just six seconds left in regulation to send it into overtime. The Nordiques were held scoreless by goalie Rick Wamsley for more than 50 minutes.

The two teams had 41 shots on goal in the first two periods without scoring.