NHL ROUNDUP : Islanders Close In on Panthers

The best race left in the NHL is for eight place in the Eastern Conference, the cutoff for the playoffs.

The New York Islanders rallied to beat the Washington Capitals in overtime on Benoit Hogue’s goal with 1:26 to play Tuesday night in Landover, Md., and moved past Philadelphia and into ninth place in the East.

Florida is in eighth, two points ahead with four games to play.

New York is 2-0-2 in its last four games.

“We don’t have much of a margin for error,” Coach Al Arbour said. “This was a big two points. We came very close tonight to playing with fire and getting burned pretty bad, but we overcame our shortcomings.”

The Islanders went 0 for 8 on power plays and fell behind, 2-0, early in the third period before coming back.

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Florida 3, Quebec 3--Joe Sakic scored with 48 seconds top play, giving the Nordiques a tie at Quebec.

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St. Louis 5, Chicago 1--Brendan Shanahan scored twice and goaltender Curtis Joseph set two team iron-man records as the beat the slumping Blackhawks at St. Louis.

Joseph broke Mike Liut’s record for victories in a season, set in 1980-81, with his 34th in 67 starts. He also broke his own team record for minutes played with 3,910, 20 more than he had last year.

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Toronto 6, Dallas 4--Kent Manderville’s goal with 3:43 to play in Dallas lifted the Maple Leafs into sole possession of second place in the Western Conference.

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Detroit 8, Vancouver 3--Dino Ciccarelli became the fifth player to score four times in one game this season, leading the Red Wings at Vancouver.

Pavel Bure had his league-leading 56th goal for Vancouver.