Hull Leads Blues Past Red Wings

Brett Hull is back and so are the St. Louis Blues.

Hull had two goals and an assist at St. Louis on Saturday night, not only leading the Blues past the Detroit Red Wings, 5-2, but leading them past Detroit in the standings as well. The Blues now lead the Red Wings by a point in the Central Division.

The three-point night gave Hull 10 points in his last three games with four goals and six assists. Not surprisingly, the Blues won all three games.

In the six games before that, Hull had no points and the Blues were 2-3-1.

Phoenix 3, San Jose 2--Jimmy Waite made a rare goaltending start for the Coyotes and Keith Tkachuk had a hand in all three goals at San Jose.

For the first time in 61 games, the Coyotes had a goaltender other than Nikolai Khabibulin, who ended the second-longest streak for consecutive starts in NHL history at 60.

Waite won his first game in only his third appearance of the season, stopping 28 of 30 shots.

Washington 3, Montreal 2--Thanks largely to 33 saves from goalie Olaf Kolzig and two goals from Peter Bondra, the Capitals beat the Canadiens for the seventh consecutive time and ended Montreal’s seven-game winning streak.

The Capitals have won three in a row and four of five.

The Canadiens had a potential game-tying goal disallowed with 3:53 left when referee Don Koharski lost sight of the puck during a goal-mouth scramble and blew the play dead.

Florida 1, N.Y. Islanders 0--Ray Whitney scored early in the third period at Uniondale, N.Y., and goaltender Mark Fitzpatrick stopped 23 shots for his 100th NHL win.

Pittsburgh 5, Toronto 0--Goalie Tom Barrasso stopped 20 shots at Toronto as the Penguins broke a six-game winless streak (0-4-2) to even their record at 9-9-4.

New Jersey 3, Buffalo 2--Martin Brodeur made 22 saves at Buffalo en route to his career-best ninth consecutive victory.

The Devils have won six in a row, one shy of the club record.

Ottawa 3, Boston 3--Rob DiMaio scored with 13 seconds to go at Boston to salvage a tie for the Bruins against a team that has won only once in eight games.

Calgary 2, Edmonton 2--Boris Mironov’s power-play goal with 8:58 to play gave the Oilers a tie at Edmonton.

NHL Notes

Eight Tampa Bay Lightning players, including goaltender Daren Puppa, were sent home by new coach Jacques Demers and fined after reporting late for practice Saturday morning. The others are forwards Rob Zamuner, Mikael Renberg, Mikael Andersson and Mick Vukota, and defensemen Roman Hamrlik, Migor Ulanov and Karl Dykhuis.