Roy Shuts Out St. Louis Again

The St. Louis Blues keep firing shots at Patrick Roy. They keep turning out to be blanks.

Roy, who had not shut out St. Louis in 14 seasons, blanked the Blues for the third time this season as the Colorado Avalanche won, 2-0, at Denver.

“I guess sometimes you need one to get on a roll,” said Roy, who has 44 shutouts. “I felt good today--like the last game. I was just trying to make save after save, play as good as I could.”

Roy made 28 saves to extend his personal shutout streak over the Blues to 192:05. His dominance--he has 85 saves against the Blues this season--spoiled a solid effort by Grant Fuhr, who made 17 saves.

Fuhr and Roy, who have 481 victories between them, were involved in a 0-0 tie this season.

“We have a lot of fun playing against each other,” Fuhr said. “You know you’re not going to get very many against him, so you enjoy the challenge.”

As enjoyable as it may be, Fuhr was clearly disappointed in himself for giving up Aaron Miller’s first-period goal.

Miller took a pass from Claude Lemieux after a faceoff in the St. Louis zone and slapped a shot past Fuhr from the right point at 17:59.

The goaltender never saw the shot as Adam Deadmarsh set a screen in front of the crease. “I didn’t see it until it hit me,” Fuhr said.

Toronto 4, Philadelphia 3--Steve Sullivan scored two goals and Derek King scored the winner at Philadelphia as the Maple Leafs ended the Flyers’ 15-game unbeaten streak.

King’s goal, his 16th, came after he stopped the puck after it caromed wide of the net. He fired a slap shot from the left circle past goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck with 5:19 to play.

The loss was the Flyers’ first since Dec. 10, when they were defeated by the New Jersey Devils, 5-4.

Eric Lindros and John LeClair each had a goal and an assist for the Flyers, who got a subpar performance from Vanbiesbrouck.

Florida 1, N.Y. Islanders 0--Dino Ciccarelli scored a first-period goal for the 1,200th point of his career and Sean Burke gained his first shutout of the season at Sunrise, Fla.

The Islanders have lost their last five games--all on the road--and are 0-9-1 in their last 10. They haven’t defeated the Panthers in Florida since Oct. 31, 1995.

Ciccarelli, who has sat out 33 games because of assorted back injuries, scored his sixth goal in only his seventh game and became the eighth active player, 28th overall, to reach 1,200 points. Ciccarelli, 38, has 608 goals and 592 assists.

“I have a lot of individual goals and it’s something I’m proud of, but it’s the team successes that’s more fun,” Ciccarelli said. “I’m a firm believer that 90% of the goals in this league are ugly and 10% are pretty.”

Buffalo 1, Ottawa 1--Dominik Hasek made 38 saves, including 13 in the third period, as the badly outplayed Sabres earned a tie at Kanata, Canada.

Ottawa, which extended its unbeaten streak to 11 games (8-0-3), gave up only 15 shots, none in the third period. The Senators outplayed the Sabres for the entire 65 minutes and only Hasek’s performance kept the Sabres in the game.

Alexei Zhitnik of the Sabres opened the scoring on the game’s first shot at 2:31.

Senator captain Alexei Yashin extended his point streak to 11 games when he tied the game at 8:23 of the second period.

Montreal 3, N.Y. Rangers 0--Jeff Hackett made 17 saves for his second consecutive shutout and Vladimir Malakhov and Brian Savage scored power-play goals at Montreal.

Vincent Damphousse added an empty-net goal for the Canadiens, who got two assists from Saku Koivu.

Hackett made 23 saves to blank the Washington Capitals on Friday night. Since being acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks in November, he has lowered his goals-against average from 3.78 to 2.65.

Washington 3, Carolina 2--Kelly Miller scored his first goal of the season nine seconds into overtime at Greensboro, N.C.

Peter Bondra and Brian Bellows added goals for the Capitals, who were shut out in each of their previous two games but responded against Carolina with a season-high 38 shots.

After the Capitals won the faceoff in overtime, Andrei Nikolishin fed the puck to Miller, who fired a slap shot from about 30 feet in front of the crease. The puck flew past the left shoulder of Arturs Irbe.

Tampa Bay 2, Boston 2--Chris Gratton scored with a little more than five minutes to play at Boston to help the struggling Lightning end a seven-game losing streak.

The Lightning, whose 9-30-4 record is the NHL’s worst, is winless so far in 1999 and 1-12-2 in its last 15 games. Tampa Bay is 0-6-1 in January.

Gratton beat Boston goaltender Rob Tallas with a wrist shot from the right circle after the Bruins had moved ahead on a third-period goal by Rob DiMaio.

Detroit 2, Vancouver 2--Goaltender Chris Osgood of the Red Wings extended his overtime shutout streak to 31 games at Vancouver.

Darren McCarty scored 6:43 into the third period to secure the tie for the Red Wings, who were unable to win despite outshooting the Canucks, 37-16.

Osgood, who is 7-0-24 during his overtime-shutout string, hasn’t given up a regular-season overtime goal since a 2-1 loss to the Rangers on Dec. 8, 1995.