Penguins Get Caught in an Avalanche, 5-2

Claude Lemieux’s second hat trick of the season led the Colorado Avalanche to a 5-2 victory over Pittsburgh on Tuesday night, handing the Penguins their third consecutive home loss.

Lemieux raised his season goal total to 22 as the Pacific Division-leading Avalanche extended its unbeaten streak to 2-0-2.

Before the current skid, the Penguins had been 18-3-0 on home ice and hadn’t lost consecutive home games. The streak is their longest since they had three consecutive home losses from Feb. 7-12, 1994.

Lemieux’s two second-period goals gave the Avalanche a 4-1 lead. He scored short-handed during a major penalty given to Valeri Kamensky for checking Bryan Smolinski from behind. The Avalanche took the puck from defenseman Sergei Zubov and a 2-on-1 with Peter Forsberg ended with Lemieux putting his own rebound behind Ken Wregget.

Lemieux completed his sixth career hat trick at 13:00. He made a nice move to keep the puck away from Markus Naslund behind the net, then moved out and put in a backhander off Naslund’s stick.

Florida 4, San Jose 1--Scott Mellanby scored his team-high 23rd goal and the Panthers had a successful homecoming in beating the Sharks.

Panther All-Star goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck came within 31 seconds of a shutout. Vanbiesbrouck (18-8-3) stopped 25 of 26 shots, but gave up a wraparound goal to Jeff Friesen at 19:29 of the final period.

The Panthers also had goals from center Rob Niedermayer, left wing Jody Hull and right wing Radek Dvorak.

It was Florida’s first game at home since Dec. 28, ending a 19-day, seven-game road trip.

The victory gave the Panthers 60 points, second only to New York in the Eastern Conference. It was the Panthers’ last game before the all-star break.

Boston 4, New Jersey 2--Adam Oates scored twice and Bill Ranford had 34 saves in his first start for the Bruins at East Rutherford, N.J.

The victory was the Bruins’ second in four days over the Devils and it allowed rookie coach Steve Kasper’s team to head into the all-star break in the playoff picture after posting a 9-3-2 record in its last 14 games.

The Bruins won this one with a three-goal second period that started with a pair of goals by Oates and ended with Steve Leach scoring on a rare three-on-none break against Martin Brodeur.

Hartford 3, Vancouver 0--Sean Burke had 25 saves as the Whalers snapped goaltender Corey Hirsch’s unbeaten streak at six games on the Hartford ice.

Jeff Brown had a power-play goal and helped set up another against his former team and Geoff Sanderson and Brendan Shanahan also scored for the Whalers.

Washington 1, Winnipeg 1--Nikolai Khabibulin returned from a six-week stay on the injured list to stop 37 shots as the Jets and Capitals played to a tie in Landover, Md.

Peter Bondra scored with 8:25 left in regulation to tie the score for the Capitals, who outshot Winnipeg 38-25. Jim Carey had 24 saves for Washington, allowing only a power-play goal in the second period by Teppo Numminen.

Edmonton 5, St. Louis 1--Curtis Joseph had an easy homecoming against the Blues, facing 26 mostly harmless shots against his former teammates.

Joseph spent six seasons with the Blues before his rights were traded to the Oilers following St. Louis’ first-round playoff elimination last season. This was his second game after he ended a lengthy holdout.