NHL ROUNDUP : A No-Win Situation for Canadiens, Roy

The Montreal Canadiens sure could have used goaltender Patrick Roy Thursday night at Pittsburgh.

They had a 4-0 lead late in the second period and couldn’t hold it, losing to the Penguins, 7-5.

Meanwhile in Denver, Roy, traded by the Canadiens on Wednesday, had an unsuccessful debut in goal for the Colorado Avalanche against Edmonton even though he stopped all 14 shots in faced in the second period.

In Pittsburgh, the Canadiens started Pat Jablonski, whose NHL record is 18-43-10, for the second game in a row. He started well but was clearly rattled once the Penguins started scoring.

He offered only token resistance the rest of the night as the NHL’s most powerful offense turned up its intensity.

Mario Lemieux scored his second goal of the game and 25th of the season at 12:35 of the third period to break a 4-4 tie.

“Usually you say it’s going to be one of those nights,” Penguin Coach Eddie Johnston said. “Then we got two quick ones, we got the third one and we had them back on their heels a little bit.”

Edmonton 5, Colorado 3--The Oilers scored three goals in the third period to spoil Roy’s debut with the Avalanche.

Roy overcame a shaky first period with some solid play in the net, and Peter Forsberg’s goal early in the final period put the Avalanche ahead 3-2.

But the Oilers came back, and Roy’s counterpart, Bill Ranford, was impressive even after taking a stick in the throat early in the third period.

Roy was pulled with about a minute left, and Zdeno Ciger had an empty-net goal at 19:15. Roy, who had been suspended by the Canadiens after a blowup with the team’s coach and president, had 26 saves. Ranford had 24 saves.

Ottawa 5, Chicago 2--The Senators snapped a 14-game winless streak as both goaltender Mike Bales and Coach Dave Allison recorded their first NHL victories in this game at Chicago.

Since Allison took over for the fired Rick Bowness on Nov. 22, Ottawa had gone 0-5-1 prior to Thursday night. Overall, the Senators were 0-13-1 during their winless streak.

Philadelphia 7, Buffalo 3--The Legion of Doom line returned to dominant form at Philadelphia as the Flyers gained a share of the Atlantic Division lead.

Eric Lindros and John LeClair each scored twice and Mikael Renberg added two assists as the Flyers won for the seventh consecutive time at home.

Toronto 2, New Jersey 1--Benoit Hogue, Mr. Clutch for the Maple Leafs, came through again in this victory at East Rutherford, N.J., scoring the game-winning goal at 16:28 of the second period.

Hogue has scored the game-winner in each of Toronto’s last five victories.

Detroit 3, Dallas 1--The Red Wings got off to a 2-0 lead in the first 10 minutes at Detroit, then played tough defense the rest of the way.

The Red Wings couldn’t clinch their 13th win in 14 games until Sergei Fedorov scored an empty-net goal with 1:02 to play.

San Jose 5, Winnipeg 3--Ulf Dahlen scored twice and Owen Nolan added a late goal as the Sharks beat the Jets at San Jose.

Goalie Chris Terreri stopped 32 shots and also had an assist.