Rangers Starting to Show Some Life

Mired in the bottom third of the Eastern Conference standings for much of the season’s first 41 games, the New York Rangers are showing some life.

They defeated the Atlanta Thrashers, 6-3, Sunday at New York for their fourth victory in five games, as John MacLean had two goals and an assist.

Of course consecutive wins over the New York Islanders and the Thrashers are nothing to get too excited about. Still, the Rangers are now in a three-way tie with Carolina and Washington for the eighth and final playoff spot.

The Rangers play Carolina at home Tuesday night.

“It’s the second half and we have to make some hay and move up in the standings,” MacLean said. “Each game is bigger than the next.”

Rookie Michael York had his first goal in six games, then set up Adam Graves’ power-play goal late in the first that gave New York a 4-1 lead.

MacLean scored his eighth and ninth goals for his second two-goal game of the season and 57th of his career.

The Rangers scored three times in the first 6:41 and coasted the rest of the way.

Jan Hlavac put New York ahead, 1-0, after 41 seconds with his seventh goal. It was the second day in a row that Hlavac scored in the first minute. He had two goals in the Rangers’ 5-2 victory Saturday.

Detroit 3, Edmonton 3--Steve Yzerman of the Red Wings scored a goal and was denied another on a last-second breakaway at Edmonton, Canada.

Yzerman, whose 613th goal tied Mario Lemieux for seventh place on the career list, was stopped by Tommy Salo on a short-handed breakaway as overtime expired.

Mathieu Dandenault and Vyacheslav Kozlov also scored for Detroit, which moved into a tie with St. Louis for first place in the Central Division.

Washington 2, Ottawa 1--Richard Zednik broke out of a scoring slump with two goals, and Olaf Kolzig made 27 saves as the Capitals beat the Senators at Washington.

Zednik had not scored a goal since getting two in Washington’s 4-2 victory over the New York Islanders on Dec. 7, and had only five points in the last 15 games.

Around the League

Florida Panther forward Peter Worrell suffered his third knee injury of the season Friday night against Carolina and will have the injury evaluated today. He spent the weekend off his feet.