NHL ROUNDUP : Sleeping Devils Awaken in Time, Beat Islanders

At two games under .500 and six months from their Stanley Cup championship, the New Jersey Devils are not in a position to take any opponent for granted.

Not even the lowly New York Islanders.

Still, it almost happened Wednesday night at East Rutherford, N.Y., where the Devils blew a three-goal lead before scoring two third-period goals for a 5-3 victory against the NHL’s third-worst team.

“Everybody on this team knows how good we can be when we play well,” said Shawn Chambers, who scored his first goal of the season and added two assists for the Devils (15-17-4). “Maybe we thought things were going to start happening for us and we were going to go back to where we were when we won the [Stanley] Cup.

“After the first period, a few guys said, ‘Let’s not take this for granted.’ ”

They did anyway. The Devils had built a 3-0 lead 44 seconds into the second period on goals by Chambers, Neal Broten and Bill Guerin.

Then it slipped away in 3:55 in the second when the Islanders scored three goals to tie.

“When they tied the game, we realized, ‘Whoa,’ we really weren’t playing well,” said Devil goaltender Martin Brodeur. “We started working hard and we got some lucky goals. Right now we can’t be picky about the way we score.”

John MacLean scored one of those lucky goals for the game-winner 43 seconds into the third period. Stephane Richer added an insurance goal at 16:41 to stop the Islanders’ season-high three game unbeaten streak (1-0-2).

Ottawa 4, Buffalo 3--The Senators, 1-13-1 in their previous 15 games, broke out at Buffalo against 18-year-old goalie Martin Biron, who had been bombarded in his NHL debut the night before.

Ted Drury’s power-play goal through Biron’s legs from about 20 feet with 1:54 to play ended the Senators’ eight-game losing streak. It was Drury’s second goal of the game.

Calgary 4, Toronto 0--In Calgary, Trevor Kidd stopped 27 shots for the fourth shutout of his career and the first shutout by the Flames over Toronto in 18 years.

Kidd, who was playing his 100th game in the NHL, won his second game in as many nights. He beat the Vancouver Canucks, 4-2, on Tuesday after not having won before that since Nov. 14.

Edmonton 3, Philadelphia 2--The Flyers’ futility in Edmonton was extended when Kelly Buchberger’s goal late in the game gave the Oilers a victory in front of their first sellout crowd in two seasons.

The Flyers are 0-10-2 in their last 12 games in Edmonton.