NHL Roundup : Penguins Lose Lemieux, Then Win Game, 4-2

The Pittsburgh Penguins said that losing star Mario Lemieux was a rallying point Thursday night against the New York Islanders, but it took them a while to show it.

Lemieux went out in the first period, but the Penguins didn’t rally until the third period, when they scored three goals during a 51-second span.

The tiebreaker by Randy Cunneyworth came with 7:48 left, and the Penguins won, 4-2, at Uniondale, N.Y.

Lemieux, the league leader in goals and second in points, suffered a bruised right shoulder when he was checked into the boards by Alan Kerr and did not return. There was no immediate word on his condition.

“Any time you have somebody like Mario out, it’s got to hurt,” Cunneyworth said. “Each of us found what we had to do. We started to go to the net more, and our defense was solid.”

The Penguins, who ended a 13-game winless streak at Nassau Coliseum and a 9-game winless streak overall against the Islanders, came back from a 2-0 deficit in the second period. After Cunneyworth’s goal made it 3-2, Craig Simpson added the final score.

Edmonton 4, Calgary 4--Mike Bullard scored with 24 seconds left in regulation at Calgary to give the Flames the tie before 19,626, the largest crowd ever to watch a professional hockey game in Canada. Nearly 2,800 new seats added for the 1988 Winter Olympics were occupied for the first time.

With the Flames holding a man advantage after pulling goalie Mike Vernon for an extra attacker, Bullard slid a shot past Edmonton goalie Grant Fuhr. But Fuhr preserved the tie one minute into overtime when he stopped rookie Brent Hull from point-blank range.

The tie extended Calgary’s unbeaten streak to six games.

New Jersey 5, St. Louis 3--Pat Verbeek scored two goals, and Aaron Broten had three assists at East Rutherford, N.J., as the Devils extended the franchise record for consecutive home victories to eight.

New Jersey led, 3-2, to start the third period, but Verbeek and Doug Sulliman gave the Devils a 5-2 cushion with goals 53 seconds apart.

Doug Gilmour had one of the St. Louis scores, giving him at least one point in each of the Blues’ 12 games this season.

New Jersey, which moved into second place in the Patrick Division, one point ahead of idle Washington, has won 8 of 12 games.

Vancouver 4, Philadelphia 3--The Canucks broke their seven-game winless streak as Greg Adams scored with 11 seconds to play at Philadelphia.

The final period began with the Flyers leading, 2-0. The Canucks scored three times to go ahead, fell back into a 3-3 tie when Rick Tocchet got a goal for Philadelphia and then went ahead for good less than a minute later.

The Flyers are last in the Patrick Division with a 4-8-2 record.

“We were ahead for two periods, and then everything caved in on us,” Flyer Coach Mike Keenan said. “I never expected us to be playing this kind of hockey through our first 14 games. . . . We’re on the verge of a crisis here.”

In their previous six games, the Canucks had lost six and tied one.

Toronto 7, Boston 6--Wendel Clark scored his second goal of the game midway through the third period to lift the Maple Leafs at Boston, the sixth straight win for the Norris Division leaders.

The Bruins, who trailed, 6-2, after two periods before making it close, are winless in six games.