NHL ROUNDUP : A Capital Day for the Defense

It doesn’t get any better than this for a group of defensemen--six goals, five assists and all five penalties killed.

Those were the numbers turned in by the Washington Capitals’ defensemen Friday night in an 8-4 victory over the New York Rangers at Landover, Md.

Sylvain Cote and Kevin Hatcher scored twice each, and fellow defensemen Paul Cavallini and Al Iafrate had one goal apiece.

“That’s a pretty tough act to follow,” said Hatcher, who also had two assists. “We didn’t give them many chances to score and we got six. Tonight was the perfect example of the way we want to play.”

Washington defensemen have 91 points and 30 goals, both tops in the NHL. Iafrate has five goals and 12 points in his last five games.

“We got a big performance from all of our defensemen,” Capital Coach Terry Murray said. “Six goals . . . that’s something we talked about in the summer. We knew we had some talent back there, and they came through in a big game tonight.”

N.Y. Islanders 5, Buffalo 5--Pat LaFontaine has scored 65 goals for Buffalo since being traded from the Islanders, but only two in five games against his former team.

But he scored the game-tying goal with 27 seconds to play in the third period at Buffalo.

The Islanders took a 5-3 lead on Derek King’s goal with 3:31 to play in the third period but couldn’t hold on to the victory as Buffalo scored twice in 59 seconds to earn the point.

Calgary 5, St. Louis 3--Gary Roberts recorded his fourth hat trick and Chris Dahlquist scored the go-ahead goal midway through the third period as the Flames rallied at home.