Hasek Gets Upstaged and Loses

Roman Cechmanek, Dominik Hasek’s former understudy, took center stage against his mentor Sunday at Buffalo.

Cechmanek stopped 36 shots in leading the Philadelphia Flyers to a 2-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres, clinching fourth place for the Flyers in the Eastern Conference and home-ice advantage between the teams in the first round of the playoffs.

“It’s good. I’m happy that we win today. It was very tough for us because we wanted to start at home,” said Cechmanek who, before this season, was best known as Hasek’s backup on the 1998 gold-medal winning Czech Republic team. “For me, maybe it’s a surprise.”

Along with winning his 35th game, tying Bernie Parent for sixth-most in franchise history, Cechmanek is 4-0 against the Sabres and has allowed only two goals against them this season.

Colorado 4, Minnesota 2--Joe Sakic scored his 53rd and 54th goals and Patrick Roy picked up his 40th victory at St. Paul, Minn.

Sakic and Roy both set career highs for Colorado (52-16-10-4), which finished the regular season with a franchise-best 118 points. The team also set franchise marks for wins, home wins (28) and home points (63).

Minnesota (25-39-13-5), which won once in its last 14 games, set an expansion record by selling out all 41 regular-season games at the Xcel Energy Center for an average attendance of 18,402.

Pittsburgh 6, Carolina 4--The Penguins rested Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr at Raleigh, N.C., but they didn’t need them to deny the Hurricanes a better playoff position and end their five-game unbeaten streak.

Carolina could have moved past Toronto and into the No. 7 spot in the Eastern Conference with a victory. But the Hurricanes will face the defending Stanley Cup champion New Jersey Devils in an opening-round playoff series instead of Ottawa.

Columbus 4, Chicago 3--Tyler Wright scored on a deflection with 2:19 left in overtime at Columbus, Ohio, as the Blue Jackets became only the third expansion team in 33 years to reach 71 points.

The Blue Jackets tied the 1993-94 Mighty Ducks for the second-highest point total by an expansion franchise since the NHL doubled in size in 1967-68. The Florida Panthers had 83 points in 1993-94.

Washington 2, Tampa Bay 1--Ulf Dahlen scored 32 seconds into the third period at Washington, flipping his backhanded deflection of Jeff Halpern’s shot over goaltender Wade Flaherty.