Lemieux Sparks Penguins to Key Road Victory, 4-1

It took three games for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Mario Lemieux to get it right.

Lemieux assisted on four goals and Tom Barrasso stopped 38 shots Monday night as the Penguins beat Washington, 4-1, at Landover, Md., cutting the Capitals’ lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1.

Pittsburgh was supposed to breeze past the crippled Capitals, who are playing without seven injured regulars. But the Penguins started the series with two losses, getting only three assists from Lemieux in the process.

“We had a meeting this morning and we had a meeting tonight, so everybody knew what the job was,” Lemieux said. “Then we went out and did it.”

The Penguins, who scored on two of their first three shots, are striving to become only the 10th team in NHL history to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first two games at home.

Jim Carey, who had not played since being replaced by Olaf Kolzig in Game 1, started at goalie and gave up first-period goals to Ron Francis and Glen Murray.

Florida 6, Boston 2--Dave Lowry scored two goals and goalie John Vanbiesbrouck made 37 saves as the Panthers, taking advantage of a Bruin team playing without its top goaltender, lost at Miami.

The victory gave Florida, playing in its first postseason, a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference series. Boston has been outscored, 12-5, in the series.

Ray Sheppard continued to victimize the Bruins, scoring one goal and assisting on three others, and Stu Barnes had three assists and Jason Woolley had a goal and assist. Rookie Ed Jovanovski and Johan Garpenlov completed the Panthers’ scoring, while Ray Bourque and Steve Heinze scored for Boston.

Boston was playing without goalie Bill Ranford, a late scratch because of a sore ankle, and turned to Craig Billington, who had not started a game since a Feb. 7 loss to Buffalo.

Vancouver 4, Colorado 3--Josef Beranek scored the tie-breaking goal with 6:42 left in the second period and set up Gino Odjick’s insurance tally as the Canucks edged the Avalanche at Vancouver to even the Western Conference series at two games each.

Esa Tikkanen had a goal and an assist and Alexander Mogilny had three assists for Vancouver, which defeated Colorado for the first time in four home games this season.