Gretzky’s Five-Point Night Overpowers Messier, Canucks

Wayne Gretzky recorded his 50th three-goal game to cap a five-point night, showing up old friend and former teammate Mark Messier as the New York Rangers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 6-3, at Vancouver on Saturday night.

Gretzky, who before the game spoke about how emotional it would be to face off against Messier, completed his hat trick with a single-handed effort at the eight-minute mark of the third period.

Carrying the puck into the Canuck zone, Gretzky went to the net and circled it, pulling goalie Kirk McLean out of position. Gretzky flipped the puck into the open cage over sprawling defenseman Dana Murzyn, then was honored by a standing ovation from the GM Place crowd.

Gretzky, 36, also recorded his 66th five-point game, the last one coming when he was a member of the Kings on Feb. 11, 1994, against Anaheim.

Philadelphia 2, Montreal 2--Former Canadien star John LeClair had three goals and two assists to lift the Flyers at Montreal.

LeClair has 17 goals and seven assists in 12 games against Montreal since joining the Flyers in a 1995 trade that sent Mark Recchi to the Canadiens.

LeClair assisted on goals from Eric Lindros and Dainius Zubrus as Philadelphia’s Legion of Doom line accounted for 11 points.

Dan Kordic also scored for the Flyers, who improved to 4-2-0 and sent the Canadiens (2-1-1) to their first loss under Coach Alain Vigneault. Montreal goalie Andy Moog also lost for the first time as a Canadien.

Edmonton 2, Toronto 1--Mats Lindgren scored with a perfectly executed short-handed steal to break a tie at Edmonton, Alberta.

The Oilers killed a rash of second-period penalties with Lindgren and Todd Marchant stepping to the forefront. With 16 seconds left in a Ryan Smyth infraction, Lindgren stripped Leaf defenseman Jamie Macoun of the puck in front of the Edmonton bench, then raced into the Leaf zone and beat goaltender Felix Potvin with a wrist shot.

San Jose 5, Boston 2--Second-period goals by Todd Gill, Marco Sturm and Viktor Kozlov at San Jose sparked the Sharks to their first victory over the Bruins.

Colorado 3, Phoenix 3--Jeremy Roenick beat Patrick Roy with a back-hander with 4:40 left to cap a three-goal third-period spurt and lift the Coyotes into a tie at Denver.

Dallas Drake and Deron Quint added third-period goals against Roy, 16-1-2 against the Coyotes. Roy stopped 28 of 31 shots for Colorado, which remained unbeaten.

St. Louis 5, Florida 3--Brett Hull scored his league-leading sixth and seventh goals to lift the Blues at St. Louis.

Hull fired a hard shot from the slot to give the Blues a 3-2 lead in the second period.

New Jersey 3, Buffalo 2--Dave Andreychuk assisted on two goals and scored the winner on a power play at 7:36 of the third period to lead the Devils at East Rutherford, N.J.

Pittsburgh 4, Carolina 1--Jaromir Jagr set up one goal and scored another in the first five minutes at Pittsburgh as the Penguins ended a three-game losing streak.

The Penguins’ only two victories have come against Carolina. They beat the Hurricanes, 4-3, in Greensboro on Oct. 3 in their second game of the season, then had two losses and a tie.

Washington 3, N.Y. Islanders 1--Jan Bulis and Yogi Svejkovsky scored 1:26 apart early in the second period at Landover, Md., as the Capitals improved to 3-0 at home.