It’s a Devil of a Setback for Rangers

Patrik Elias scored a goal and assisted on another Wednesday night as the visiting New Jersey Devils stretched their unbeaten streak against New York to 17 games with a 3-1 victory over the Rangers.

The Devils, who also got goals from Jason Arnott and Claude Lemieux, have not lost to the Rangers in the regular season since Jan. 12, 1997 (12-0-5). Martin Brodeur stopped 36 shots for his league-leading 31st victory, giving up only a goal to Adam Graves.

“It was an an emotional game against the Rangers,” Brodeur said. “We’ll see how we do playing three games against them in eight days.”

The teams will meet again at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday before playing at New Jersey on Wednesday.

Nashville 6, New York Islanders 4--Patrick Kjellberg scored two of the Predators’ four goals in a 3:38 span of the second period to help lift Nashville over the Islanders at Uniondale, N.Y.

Sebastien Bordeleau started the spurt at 7:53, Kjellberg scored his goals 1:43 apart and Joel Bouchard gave Nashville a 5-2 lead at 11:31.

Florida 3, Montreal 1--Pavel Bure scored twice to lead the Panthers to victory at Sunrise, Fla.

Bure leads the league with 37 goals, one more than Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr. The Panthers improved to 21-2-2 when Bure scores and are undefeated in eight games when he gets more than one goal.

Viktor Kozlov, who scored Florida’s third goal, broke his career high for assists in a season with his 36th.

Sergei Zholtok scored his 15th goal for Montreal.

Dallas 2, Atlanta 1--Mike Modano scored his 21st goal late in the second period of a scoreless game and Guy Carbonneau added a third-period short-handed goal as the Stars stopped the Thrashers at Dallas.

Edmonton 4, Chicago 1--Mike Grier scored his third short-handed goal of the season to spark the Oilers at Edmonton, Canada.

Grier, who has seven goals, is tied for second in the league in short-handed goals, one behind John Madden of New Jersey.

Doug Weight, Ethan Moreau and Janne Niinimaa also scored for the Oilers.

Around the League

St. Louis Blues center Pierre Turgeon will be sidelined for six to eight weeks because of ligament damage to his right thumb. Surgery won’t be required for the injury, suffered in Saturday’s victory over Colorado. . . . In a bid to attract more families to attend, the Carolina Hurricanes will lower prices by an average of $3 a ticket next season. The average ticket price of $38 for the 2000-01 season would put the Hurricanes at or near the bottom of the NHL.