NHL PLAYOFFS : Rangers Beat Denver, er, Quebec

The Rangers got a couple of lucky bounces Wednesday night, including one on Brian Leetch’s goal with 7:18 to play, in a 4-3 victory over Quebec in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal playoff series at New York.

The Nordiques will need a couple of lucky bounces to continue being called Quebec when they return home after Game 4 Friday at Madison Square Garden.

Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau will disclose details today of his final offer to keep the Nordiques. It is possible that five shareholders will by then have turned it down.

Within a matter of days--maybe hours--the shareholders could accept a standing offer of $75 million from Comsat Video Enterprises of Denver, which would move the team to Colorado next season.

In Denver, the Rocky Mountain News reported that executives of Comsat, which also owns the Denver Nuggets, were preparing for the sale to go through. It quoted an unidentified Comsat spokesman as saying: “If they flinch, it’s ours.”

A move by the Nordiques could be the second from a small-market Canadian city in recent days. An agreement to move the Winnipeg Jets to Minnesota could be announced today or by the end of the week.

While all this is going on off the ice, the defending Stanley Cup champion Rangers took a 2-1 lead in games over Quebec when Nordique goaltender Stephane Fiset apparently lost sight of the puck and was slow reacting to Leetch’s shot.

“Back in Quebec, they had a slap shot go over our net and hit (Mike) Richter in the back for a goal, so maybe we were owed a break or two,” Leetch said.

New York had scored another lucky goal earlier when a pass by Pat Verbeek in the first period hit something along the right boards and took a crazy bounce in front to set up a goal by Adam Graves.

Boston 3, New Jersey 2--When the Bruins finally scored--they didn’t do so in the first two games of this series--they kept on scoring, winning at East Rutherford, N.J., on goals by Mats Naslund, Cam Neely and Mariusz Czerkawski in the second period.

Naslund’s goal ended Devil goalie Martin Brodeur’s bid for a record-tying third consecutive playoff shutout and started cutting into New Jersey’s lead in games, now 2-1. Brodeur had blanked the Bruins for the opening 149 minutes 59 seconds of the series and had stopped their first 55 shots.

Washington 6, Pittsburgh 2--Keith Jones and Calle Johansson each had two goals at Landover, Md., and rookie goalie Jim Carey stopped 23 shots to earn his first playoff victory for the Capitals, who took a 2-1 lead in games.

Washington’s Michal Pivonka failed to convert the 29th penalty shot in Stanley Cup history, lifting the puck over the net against backup goaltender Tom Barrasso in the third period. But that was about the only thing that went wrong for the Capitals in their sixth consecutive victory at home.

Buffalo 3, Philadelphia 1--Donald Audette and Wayne Presley scored for the Sabres, who spotted Philadelphia a 1-0 lead before winning at Buffalo to draw within 2-1 in games.

Alexander Mogilny closed the scoring with an empty-net goal.

Sabre goaltender Dominik Hasek faced two shots in the second period and made 18 saves in the victory over a Philadelphia team that is still playing without injured captain Eric Lindros.