Devils Near Road Record With Win Over Canadiens

The New Jersey Devils are one win away from matching the NHL record for road victories after defeating the Montreal Canadiens, 6-2, Saturday night at Montreal.

“There’s no question we want it,” the Devils’ Scott Stevens said of the record of 27 set by the Canadiens in the 1976-77 season and matched by the Canadiens the next season. “It won’t hurt us for the playoffs to go after it. We’re playing good hockey now and we’ve having fun out there, so we’ll definitely go after it.”

The Devils can tie the record with a victory at Buffalo on Wednesday night or in their season finale April 17 at Nashville.

The Canadiens, already out of the playoffs, did little to slow the Devils’ progress.

Brian Rolston and Patrick Elias each scored two goals and the Devils took a 3-0 lead in the opening 11:37--before the Canadiens even got a shot on goal.

Lyle Odelein and Peter Sykora also scored for the Devils, who are 8-2-2 in their last 12 games and only two points behind the Ottawa Senators for first place in the Eastern Conference.

“The only scoreboard we were watching was the one in the middle of the rink here,” Devil Coach Robbie Ftorek said of the race for first place. “It doesn’t matter what Ottawa does if we don’t win here.”

Ottawa 1, Buffalo 1--Dixon Ward scored early in the second period to pull the Sabres even at Kanata, Canada, as the teams tied for the fourth time in five games.

Ward’s 20th goal of the season 27 seconds into the period salvaged a point for the Sabres, who remained sixth in the Eastern Conference, one point ahead of the Boston Bruins and two ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Igor Kravchuk scored a power-play goal in the first period for the Senators, who have three games remaining as they try to hold off the Devils for top seeding in the East. The Devils have four games left.

Boston 3, Tampa Bay 2--Anson Carter scored his fifth game-winning goal of the season and Steve Heinze added a goal and two assists at Boston.

Philadelphia 2, Washington 1--Keith Jones and Steve Duchesne scored early goals for the Flyers, whose victory at Washington guaranteed the Capitals their worst season in 17 years.

Jones and Duchesne scored on two of the Flyers’ first five shots as the Flyers stayed ahead of the Sabres in the battle for the No. 5 seeding in the Eastern Conference. The Flyers, 6-3-1 since a franchise-record 12-game winless streak, also moved within three points of the fourth-place Toronto Maple Leafs as the regular season enters its final week.

Toronto 9, Florida 1--Steve Sullivan scored four goals at Toronto.

Steve Thomas had a five-point game with four assists and a goal and Sergei Berezin, Mats Sundin, Dimitri Yushkevich and Sylvain Cote added one goal apiece.

Toronto’s 44th victory tied the single-season club record set in 1992-93.

Edmonton 1, Calgary 1--Doug Weight scored with 4:44 left in the third period as the Oilers inched closer to clinching a playoff berth at Vancouver.

Edmonton moved four points ahead of ninth-place Calgary in the race for the Western Conference’s eighth and final playoff berth. The Oilers have three games left, one fewer than Calgary.

Carolina 6, N.Y. Islanders 1--Sami Kapanen had a goal and two assists at Uniondale, N.Y., as the Hurricanes completed a five-game season-series sweep of the Islanders.

Around the League

Jason Krog of New Hampshire, winner of the Hobey Baker award as college hockey’s best player, signed a multiyear contract with the New York Islanders. . . . Defenseman Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre of the Buffalo Sabres was suspended for one game by the NHL for tripping Mark Parrish of the Florida Panthers.