Ottawa Gets Late Shot It Needs

The Ottawa Senators took only one shot in the third period, and they made it count.

The Eastern Conference leaders had nothing before Shawn McEachern’s 30th goal broke a 2-2 tie with eight minutes, 15 seconds left in the game, and they had nothing after it. But one was enough for a 3-2 victory at St. Louis on Saturday night.

“You look up on the board and you can see that you don’t have a shot yet,” McEachern said. “But we got the one that went in, so that’s all that counts.”

The Senators were on the wrong end of a 10-0 shot count when McEachern beat Grant Fuhr on an odd-man rush from the right circle at 11:45. The final third-period count was 11-1 for the Blues, who had a 22-15 advantage overall.

“It’s a good shooting percentage, I guess,” McEachern said. “I just tried to go high on Fuhr, because we beat him there before.”

After all of that inactivity, Fuhr said it was tough to stay sharp.

“There’s easier ways of playing, but you still have to make that one save,” Fuhr said. “That’s what you’re paid to do and that’s what you have to do. We played well enough that we should have gotten a minimum of one point out of it.”

Pavol Demitra scored his 33rd and 34th for the Blues, who lost for the first time in five games (3-1-1) before their 14th sellout crowd of 19,736. Demitra has seven goals and two assists during a five-game goal-scoring streak.

Toronto 3, New Jersey 1--Curtis Joseph made 30 saves for his 30th victory of the season as the Maple Leafs defeated the Devils at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

Steve Sullivan, Todd Warriner and Fredrik Modin, in his first game back since breaking his collar bone, scored for Toronto. All the goals came during the second period.

Joseph, who recorded his fourth 30-win season, joined New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur (32 wins) and Dallas’ Ed Belfour (30) as the only goalies to reach that plateau this season.

Colorado 5, Chicago 5--Theo Fleury returned from a knee injury to score the tying goal, his 32nd goal of the year, for the Avalanche at Denver.

Joe Sakic, who received his first fighting major since Feb. 28, 1990, had two goals and Claude Lemieux added a goal and two assists for Colorado.

The Avalanche had Fleury back for the first time in eight games since he suffered a sprained right knee on March 1, one day after being acquired in trade from Calgary.

Sandis Ozolinsh had two assists for Colorado, which is 2-5-2 in its last nine home games.

Nashville 1, Pittsburgh 1--Robert Lang’s power-play goal early in the third period gave the Penguins a tie with the Predators at Pittsburgh, extending their unbeaten streak to five games.

Pittsburgh is 3-0-2 since a season-worst 0-4-2 streak. The Penguins are unbeaten in overtime at 6-0-11. The Predators are 3-7-1 in the last 11 games.

Sergei Krivokrasov scored his 22nd for Nashville at 10:14 of the second period. Cliff Ronning got the puck behind the net and made a quick pass to Krivokrasov, who was skating up the slot.

Boston 2, San Jose 2--Marco Sturm scored the tying goal with 17.7 seconds left in the second period as the Sharks, winless in their NHL existence at Boston, salvaged a tie at Boston.

The Sharks, 6-1-1 in their last eight games, never have won at Boston, going 0-5-2 since joining the league in 1991.

Boston, currently holding the Eastern Conference’s final playoff spot, is 3-1-1 in its last five games. The Bruins, who entered the game three points ahead of Florida and the New York Rangers, have 14 games left.

Edmonton 4, Vancouver 3--Right wing Mike Grier recorded his first career hat trick for the Oilers, but Pat Falloon scored the biggest goal, breaking a 3-3 tie at 10:09 of the third period to lead the Oilers to victory at Edmonton.

Newly acquired Ethan Moreau assisted on all of Grier’s goals.