Battle of West Giants Results in No Goals

Th playoffs haven’t begun yet, but you couldn’t tell that Saturday at St. Louis.

In a matchup of the league’s top teams, both failed to score and the Blues took another step toward finishing first overall in the NHL, skating to a 0-0 tie with the Detroit Red Wings.

“It was as close to a playoff game as you’re going to get,” said Blues’ captain Chris Pronger, who played more than 35 minutes. “It wasn’t like both teams laid back, that’s for sure.”

Roman Turek stopped 17 shots for the Blues, who lead the league with a franchise-record 109 points. Chris Osgood made 29 stops for the Red Wings, who are second overall with 106 points and shut out the Blues on the road for the second consecutive time.

Detroit won, 2-0, Feb. 10 at St. Louis.

“There weren’t a lot of chances, but there were some good ones,” Red Wing Coach Scotty Bowman said. “When you get a double shutout you have to get pretty good goaltending.”

It was the first scoreless tie in 199 meetings between the teams, each of which was without its leading scorer. Detroit’s Steve Yzerman, who has 79 points, is sidelined with a sprained knee, and St. Louis’ Pavol Demitra (75) is recovering from a concussion.

Since both teams are in the Western Conference’s Central Division, the tie was a positive for the Blues. The second-place finisher in the division gets the No. 4 seeding in the conference playoffs.

Toronto 4, Washington 3--After building a three-goal lead, the Maple Leafs survived a third-period rally and defeated the Capitals in a battle of division leaders at Washington.

The victory moved Northeast Division-leading Toronto (96 points) within one point of Southeast Division-leading Washington (97) in the seeding race for the Eastern Conference playoffs. New Jersey leads the Atlantic Division with 99 points.

Buffalo 2, Montreal 0--Michael Peca scored the game-winner in his return from a two-game suspension and Dominik Hasek made 27 saves as the Sabres won at Montreal to move one point ahead of the Canadiens in the race for the final playoff spot in the East.

With each team having four games left in the regular season, Buffalo has 79 points and Montreal and Carolina each have 78.

Boston 2, New York Rangers 2--Michael York scored with 80 seconds left in regulation and the Rangers forged a tie with the Bruins at Boston, but the draw eliminated both teams from the playoffs.

New York Islanders 2, Chicago 2--Tony Amonte scored his second goal of the game with 54.2 seconds left in regulation to give the Blackhawks a tie with the Islanders at Uniondale, N.Y.

Kevin Weekes made a career-high 47 saves to help the Islanders gain their first point at home since defeating Buffalo March 4.

Philadelphia 3, Pittsburgh 2--John LeClair and Keith Primeau each scored a goal and set up another as the Flyers won for only the third time in their last 22 games at Pittsburgh.

The Flyers improved to 4-0-1 against the Penguins and closed to within two points of idle New Jersey for the Atlantic Division lead.

Calgary 3, San Jose 0--Fred Brathwaite made 29 saves to tie a team record with his fifth shutout of the season as the Flames won at Calgary. Bill Lindsay, Jarome Iginla and rookie Sergei Varlamov scored for the 11th-place Flames, who are five points behind the eighth-place Sharks. Each team has four games remaining.

Tampa Bay 3, Florida 3--Scott Mellanby scored with 1:36 remaining in regulation as the Panthers rallied from a 3-1 deficit at Sunrise, Fla.

Edmonton 4, Phoenix 3--After blowing a 3-1 lead with 39 seconds left, the Oilers got a goal from Tom Poti in overtime to escape with a victory at Edmonton.

Around the League

Defenseman Stephane Quintal, who had requested to be traded to Montreal four months ago, was suspended by the New York Rangers for the final four games of the season. The Rangers said the suspension was “for conduct deemed detrimental to the hockey club.”