Panthers Blank Rangers
With so much attention paid to Pavel Bure, the rest of the Florida Panthers had it pretty easy against the New York Rangers.
Mike Vernon got his first shutout of the season, captain Scott Mellanby scored for the first time in 15 games and Peter Worrell knocked down two Rangers with one blow Wednesday night as the Panthers beat the Rangers, 3-0, at Sunrise, Fla.
“We’re capable of doing this every night,” said Vernon, who made 25 saves. “We just haven’t done it with any consistency, and that’s what championship teams do.”
Vernon, who has 23 shutouts in 14 seasons, made a stick save to stop a breakaway by Petr Nedved and preserve a 2-0 lead with 13 minutes to play. Vernon’s last shutout came at Phoenix on Feb. 8, 1999.
The Rangers constantly shadowed Bure with defenseman Brian Leetch, opening up plenty of scoring chances for everyone else. Even though Bure scored his league-leading 41st goal, the Rangers were satisfied with the game plan.
“I think it went very well and it was very effective,” Coach John Muckler said. “Leetch was the right guy to play that position because of his hockey knowledge and the way he can skate. He can take shifts as long as Bure can take them, but you can only do it so long because then you fall behind.”
Dallas 3, Nashville 0--Mike Modano scored two goals and rookie Manny Fernandez stopped 18 shots at Dallas for the first shutout of his career.
Modano scored 77 seconds after the opening faceoff, converting Jamie Langenbrunner’s backhand pass with an angled shot from the right of goaltender Tomas Vokoun.
Modano added his 24th of the season on a wrist shot from the slot with 4:22 to play.
Boston 3, Toronto 3--Andre Savage’s third-period goal pulled the Bruins even at Toronto, extending the Maple Leafs’ winless streak to a season-high five games.
Savage tied the score by deflecting Kyle McLaren’s point shot past Curtis Joseph at 6:32 for his fifth goal. The Bruins have gone to overtime eight times in 15 games and finished tied in six.
Pittsburgh 1, Buffalo 1--Alexei Kovalev of the Penguins scored late in the third period, keeping the Sabres winless at Pittsburgh for nearly four years.
Dominik Hasek improved to 2-0-3 since returning on Feb. 1 from a groin injury that sidelined him for 40 games.
Detroit 5, Vancouver 2--Steve Yzerman scored two goals at Detroit as the Red Wings won for the fourth time in a row.
Sergei Fedorov, Brent Gilchrist and Brendan Shanahan also scored for the Red Wings, who moved within a point of the idle St. Louis Blues for first place in the Central Division.
Montreal 5, Atlanta 1--Turner Stevenson scored two goals at Atlanta as the Canadiens handed the Thrashers their 11th consecutive loss.
The expansion Thrashers, the NHL’s worst team at 11-40-6-4, are winless in 15 games and have not won since beating the Philadelphia Flyers on Jan. 14.
Around the League
Don Waddell, general manager of the Atlanta Thrashers, hopes an unconventional medical procedure will cure No. 1 goalie Damian Rhodes’ injured right ankle. Waddell said Rhodes returned to Vancouver for the second time in eight days Wednesday to undergo a treatment similar to the one that benefited guard Jim Jackson of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Rhodes, who will receive a third treatment on Feb. 23, has been sidelined since Nov. 18 and has been sidelined 37 games. Jackson, the Hawks’ No. 2 scorer with an average of 17.8 points a game, has had no trouble since his ailing knees were treated in Toronto with shockwave therapy akin to the procedure used to dissolve kidney stones. According to Waddell, U.S. doctors have yet to embrace the treatment. . . . A Stanley Cup championship for the New Jersey Devils this season could bring a big windfall to team owner John McMullen. If the league-leading Devils do hoist the cup this spring, the YankeeNets organization will pay an extra $15 million in its expected purchase of the hockey team, the Star-Ledger of Newark reported. That would boost the sale price to at least $190 million, the newspaper reported, citing a source it did not name.