NHL ROUNDUP : Mullen’s Early Hat Trick Lifts Penguins Past Maple Leafs

The Pittsburgh Penguins stopped complaining about officiating long enough Tuesday night to play their best hockey in a month.

The Penguins, who had won only three of their previous 16 games, turned a first-period hat trick by Joe Mullen into a 7-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs at Pittsburgh.

The Maple Leafs had won three of their previous four games, but from the time Mullen scored his 33rd goal at 6:42 of the first period, they were never in this game.

Mullen scored his second goal at 12:43 and his third with 42 seconds to play in the period.

The victory gave the Penguins a bit of a breathing room in the battle for the last playoff spot in the Patrick Division. The fourth-place Penguins lead the New York Islanders by six points and Philadelphia by eight.

The Penguins, who have claimed they are victims of poor NHL officiating, ended a 0-4-2 slump.

Mario Lemieux, the Stanley Cup champions’ best player, reportedly told his teammates that one of the officials, Paul Stewart, told Lemieux to expect punishment for himself or the team.

Lemieux had called the NHL a “garage” league for failure to stop illegal holding and other penalties.

Mullen had scored only five goals in his previous 20 games.

New Jersey 4, Philadelphia 3--Viacheslav Fetisov scored at 1:42 of overtime at East Rutherford, N.J., to give the Devils their club-record sixth consecutive victory.

The Flyers’ Kevin Dineen had scored with less than five seconds to play in regulation, sending the game into overtime.

The Nets are seven points behind the New York Rangers, but the leaders have only 20 games to play, the Devils 23.

The Flyers saw their 4-0-1 streak end.

Quebec 4, Minnesota 0--Owen Nolan scored his 30th goal and assisted on two more at Quebec and John Tanner’s first shutout enabled the Nordiques to end a 10-game winless skid.

st was Tanner’s first victory since Oct. 20, 1990. In 11 starts since then, he was 0-9-2. But he stopped 32 shots in handing the North Stars their second consecutive shutout. The North Stars lost, 8-0, at Montreal on Monday night.

Tanner played well despite sickness.

“I wasn’t feeling so great heading into the game,” Tanner said. “I had a fever and I really felt hot, but it turned out that my teammates played great and made things easy for me.”

Tanner was happy to end his personal drought.

“It gets a monkey off my back,” he said. “I never had a losing record before (in the minors).”

“I’m still 1-5-1 this year, but this is something to build on.”

Shortly before the game, the Nordiques acquired veteran forward John Tonelli, a former King, from Chicago.

Washington 4, San Jose 2--John Druce scored his second goal of the game with 62 seconds to play at San Jose to give the Capitals the victory.

It was the fifth loss in a row for the Sharks, who were outscored, 30-10, while losing four in a row on a trip East.