Tampa Bay’s Cullen Strikes Back at Penguins

The Tampa Bay Lightning passed a big test in a crucial stretch of their season.

A pair of second-period goals from center John Cullen, including the game-winner, enabled the Lightning to stay in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff hunt with a 4-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night at St. Petersburg, Fla.

Chris Gratton added a goal and an assist and Alexander Selivanov had a pair of assists as Tampa Bay (21-20-7) remained undefeated in its last six games at the ThunderDome (5-0-1).

Cullen, signed as a free agent by the Lightning after Pittsburgh decided not to re-sign him in the off-season, had a chance for the natural hat trick but was stopped by Penguins goaltender Ken Wregget on a breakaway midway through the second period.

“I thought I had it and I started to raise my hands, and [Wregget] sat there laughing through his mask at me,” said Cullen, who has 32 points in 43 games. “But anytime you can score a couple of goals against your old team, it feels good.”

It was the second consecutive loss for the Northeast Division-leading Penguins (31-16-3), who dropped to 5-6-0 in their last 11 games. Pittsburgh was coming off a 2-1 loss at the Florida Panthers on Monday.

Pittsburgh center Ron Francis, who scored the lone Penguin goal on the power play at 4:57 of the first period, said the team dug too big a hole for itself.

“We played awful in the first period and didn’t recover,” he said. “We had the incentive to play well after losing our last game to Florida. But it’s tough when you get down in this building to get back in it.”

Chicago 4, Edmonton 0--Ed Belfour stopped 35 shots for his first shutout of the season as the Chicago Blackhawks started a six-game NHL road trip with a victory at Edmonton.

Jim Cummins, Bernie Nicholls, Eric Daze and Brent Sutter were the goal scorers as Chicago extended its record in its last 21 games to 15-3-3.

St. Louis 4, Toronto 0--Dale Hawerchuk became the 23rd player in NHL history to score 500 goals as the Blues won at Toronto.

Hawerchuk scored the historic goal on a 2-on-1 break at 10:26 of the third period.

Grant Fuhr registered his 15th career shutout in the St. Louis net.

Buffalo 6, Florida 1--Pat LaFontaine had a goal and three assists to eclipse 900 career points, and Brad May added a pair of goals in a victory at Buffalo, N.Y.

Randy Burridge, May and Garry Galley scored for Buffalo in the opening 20 minutes en route to a 3-0 lead.

Jason Dawe put the game away with a goal in the third period followed by goals by May and LaFontaine.

Boston 3, Ottawa 1--Bruin goaltender Bill Ranford was the difference in a wide-open game in Kanata, Ontario.

Adam Oates, Josef Stumpel and Shawn McEachern scored to end a two-game Bruins losing streak, but it was Ranford who stole the show in his best performance since coming to Boston from the Edmonton Oilers in a Jan. 11 trade.

Montreal 5, Washington 3--Martin Rucinsky and Vincent Damphousse carried on their torrid scoring pace as the Canadiens won at home.

Damphousse had two goals and an assist and Rucinsky had a goal and two assists to lead Montreal to its fourth consecutive victory.

N.Y. Rangers 1, Dallas 1--Luc Robitaille’s power-play goal with 2:14 remaining in regulation lifted the Rangers into a tie in Dallas.

The Rangers, 5-0-4 in January, got another strong performance from Glenn Healy, who only gave up a second-period goal by Kevin Hatcher while facing 23 shots. The Rangers are 10-1-5 in their last 16 games.