Senators Showing Early Strength

The Ottawa Senators already have some impressive victories in the young NHL season and still no blemishes.

For the second game in a row, the Senators defeated one of last year’s Stanley Cup finalists--this time beating the champion New Jersey Devils, 3-1, Friday night at Kanata, Canada.

Shawn McEachern, Ricard Persson and Rob Zamuner scored and Patrick Lalime made 30 saves as the Senators remained unbeaten (2-0-1).

After opening the season with a tie against Boston, the Senators beat Dallas, the defending Western Conference champion.

Things don’t ease up for Ottawa, which plays Eastern Conference powers Toronto and Philadelphia in its next two games.

“When you look at our schedule, it doesn’t get much tougher than that,” said McEachern, who scored his first of the season at 14:35 of the first period on Alexei Yashin’s feed from behind the net.

McEachern and Persson scored during a 2:05 span of the first period as Ottawa erased an early 1-0 deficit.

Edmonton 3, Buffalo 2--Bill Guerin scored with 2:02 left in the game at Edmonton to give the Oilers a victory over the Sabres.

Guerin took a short pass from Ryan Smyth while cutting alone toward the net and backhanded a shot over Buffalo goalie Dominik Hasek, who returned after missing one game with a knee injury.

The goal came less than a minute after Dave Andreychuk tied it, 2-2, for the Sabres.

Florida 2, Carolina 2--With Pavel Bure sidelined because of a slight groin injury, the Panthers had to settle for a tie with the Hurricanes at Sunrise, Fla.

Bure scored the game’s final goal midway through the second period, then sat out the third period and overtime.

Bure said he didn’t think his groin injury was serious, and he hopes to play in the Panthers’ next game Wednesday at Phoenix.

Bure, who led the NHL with 58 goals last season, scored his second of the season on a power play, knocking the puck out of the air on a rebound of his own miss. It was Florida’s only goal in five power-play chances.

Nashville 3, Washington 1--Tom Fitzgerald scored two goals and Mike Dunham stopped 29 shots as the Predators ruined Washington goalie Olaf Kolzig’s return from knee surgery by beating the Capitals at Nashville.

Kolzig, the Vezina Trophy winner last season as the NHL’s best goalie, looked sharp in the opening minutes despite having arthroscopic surgery on his right knee only 17 days ago. He stopped a shot by Cliff Ronning on a two-on-one and blocked the rebound shot by Patric Kjellberg.

Fitzgerald, who put the Predators ahead, 2-0, with his first goal of the season at 14:26 of the second period, sealed the victory by knocking the puck into the empty net with 1.8 seconds remaining.

St. Louis 2, Minnesota 0--Brent Johnson made 16 saves for the Blues in their home opener. Johnson, appearing in his eighth career game and second this season, earned his first career shutout.

Johnson was playing in place of Roman Turek. A week earlier, Johnson beat San Jose, 4-1.

Pittsburgh 3, Tampa Bay 2--Jaromir Jagr scored his first goal of the season and the Penguins hung on to defeat the Lightning at Pittsburgh.

Jagr’s goal with 12:17 remaining gave Pittsburgh a 3-1 lead. After trying to stuff a shot inside the right goal post, Jagr gathered the rebound and flipped the puck over the net off Lightning defenseman Pavel Kubina and past goalie Kevin Weekes.

Around the League

St. Louis Blues captain Chris Pronger, the league’s MVP last season, was suspended by the NHL for one game for leaving the bench and becoming involved in a fight against the Kings on Wednesday night. Blues wing Pavol Demitra suffered a broken nose when the Kings’ Kelly Buchberger hit him with an elbow in the neutral zone during the second period. The hit prompted Pronger to leave the bench during a line change and begin fighting with Buchberger. Pronger missed Friday night’s 2-0 victory over the expansion Minnesota Wild. He will return Tuesday against Detroit. The suspension will cost him $14,505.35.

After going 2-0-2 during a season-opening trip, Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy can tie Terry Sawchuk’s career victory mark tonight against expansion Columbus. Roy has won 446 games. . . . Goalie Steve Shields will miss San Jose’s next game and could be sidelined longer because of a sprained ankle suffered Thursday night against Phoenix. Shields’ backup, Evgeni Nabokov, will start tonight against Boston. . . . Montreal captain Saku Koivu has a knee injury that might sideline him as long as two months. The injury is believed to be a strained medial collateral ligament in his left knee. He was injured Wednesday night against the New York Rangers.

Defenseman Steve Smith, who considered retirement after a serious neck injury last season, has been added to Calgary’s active roster and could dress for tonight’s game against the New York Islanders. . . . The Phoenix Coyotes signed holdout center Trevor Letowski to a one-year contract. Letowski reportedly agreed to a qualifying offer that would pay him $330,000.