Penguins Win With Stars Out

The Penguins only had to kill four penalties in their 5-3 win over Buffalo, but they had to play short-handed all night long Tuesday in Pittsburgh.

Greg Johnson and Joe Dziedzic scored third-period goals for the undermanned Penguins, who won for only the third time in 17 games.

The Penguins were without their two best players, Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, and lost No. 1 goalie Ken Wregget and Darius Kasparaitis, one of their top defensemen, in the third period.

“Everyone chipped in and did a great job for 60 minutes,” interim Coach Craig Patrick said. “That was a great effort. That was nice to see.”

Patrick, also the general manager, created some of the turmoil. Earlier Tuesday, he traded forwards Glen Murray and Richard Park.

Despite the emergency recall of Dave Roche and Jeff Christian, the Penguins dressed nine forwards and nine defensemen.

That meant that two of the defensemen occasionally played on the wing. That included Francois Leroux, Pittsburgh’s clumsiest skater, and Ian Moran, who wound up sealing the game with an empty net goal.

The Sabres’ three-game winning streak ended.

The Penguins are 3-12-2 in their last 17 games.

Colorado 4, Vancouver 2--Peter Forsberg had a goal and two assists and Claude Lemieux scored two goals for the Avalanche, which finished a sweep of a five-game season series with Vancouver by winning in Denver.

Forsberg extended his point streak to nine games and Patrick Roy had 21 saves, including two stops on a Canuck power-play opportunity in the third period when Colorado was clinging to a 3-2 lead.

Lemieux provided the final margin, taking a pass from Forsberg and beating Corey Hirsch at 14:54.

Colorado, 9-0-0 when Lemieux scores, increased its lead over Dallas to nine points in the race for home-ice advantage in the Western Conference playoffs.