Montreal Eyes Edge at Home While on Road

The Montreal Canadiens just want to go home--and stay there.

The Canadiens improved their less-than-stellar road record with a 3-1 victory Saturday night at Ottawa, moving into fourth place in the Eastern Conference.

That would give Montreal home-ice advantage--the Canadiens are 22-10-5 at home--in the opening round of the playoffs.

The victory was the eighth in the last 11 games for the Canadiens and improved their record to 39-29-8--one point ahead of fifth place Florida.

“We had the game won, so we just wanted to finish it and go home,” said defenseman Lyle Odelein. “It started to really drag on.”

Toronto 4, Edmonton 3--Tie Domi scored to break a second-period tie and Doug Gilmour added two goals to lift the Maple Leafs at Edmonton.

Todd Gill had a goal and an assist and Wendel Clark and Mats Sundin each set up two scores for Toronto, which moved ahead of the Calgary Flames and into sixth place in the Western Conference.

Tampa Bay 2, Florida 1--Goalie Daren Pupa made 26 saves, many of them in one-on-one situations, and the Lightning, which had never won in Miami, did just that to move into a tie with Boston for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Pittsburgh 2, New Jersey 1--Brad Lauer and Petr Nedved scored third-period goals at Pittsburgh for the Penguins, who won their fourth game in a row.

Hartford 3, New York Islanders 1--Andrei Nikolishin and Brendan Shanahan scored in the final three minutes for the Whalers at Hartford.

NHL Notes

Montreal Canadiens center Vincent Damphousse was suspended for two games and fined $1,000 by the NHL for a cross-checking incident against the Washington Capitals’ Sergei Gonchar.