Heatley’s Shot Beats Bruins’ 55

One shot by Atlanta’s Dany Heatley overcame 55 shots by the Boston Bruins.

Heatley, the second pick in the 2000 draft, scored 3:58 into overtime to give the Thrashers a 3-2 victory Tuesday night at Boston as the Bruins’ problems against recent expansion teams continued.

“I got a good ricochet. Anyone could have put that in,” Heatley said. “It was more of a lucky bounce than anything.”

Atlanta, which squandered a 2-0 lead, won after Ilya Kovalchuk shot the puck to the left of the net and retrieved it. He passed it from behind the net past goalie Byron Dafoe.

Heatley, crossing in front of the crease, scored his 11th goal of the season.

It came on the Thrashers’ 14th shot, only four more than the Bruins’ Brian Rolston took all game.

“We had control of the puck on their end. We didn’t give up many chances on our end,” said Rolston, who tied the score with his 16th goal at 2:30 of the third period. “But they had a hot goalie.”

The 55 shots against Milan Hnilicka were six more than the three-year-old club’s previous record.

“It’s the first time since we started that our goaltender has really stolen a game for us,” Thrasher Coach Curt Fraser said. “That was a special performance by Milan.”

Atlanta, which has the NHL’s worst record, won for the second time in 11 games while the Bruins have lost three consecutive for the first time this season.

The Bruins suffered their fifth home loss of the season. Three have come against expansion teams Minnesota, Columbus and Atlanta.

Ottawa 5, Carolina 1--Patrick Lalime stopped 28 shots, and Sami Salo scored short-handed at Raleigh, N.C., as the Senators won for the 14th time in 22 games.

Carolina lost for the first time since General Manager Jim Rutherford said nine days ago that he was evaluating everyone on the team. The Hurricanes earned nine of 10 points before Tuesday.

New York Islanders 4, Edmonton 1--Shawn Bates scored twice in his first game back from an injury at Uniondale, N.Y., and the Islanders won for only the second time in 10 games.

Mark Parrish had a goal and assist, and Mariusz Czerkawski also scored for New York, which is 2-4-3-1 in its last 10 games.

The Islanders moved within one point of the New York Rangers for first place in the Atlantic Division.

Philadelphia 6, St. Louis 3--Chris Therien’s short-handed goal midway through the third period lifted the Flyers at Philadelphia.

Jeremy Roenick, Marty Murray, Kim Johnsson, Mark Recchi and Ruslan Fedotenko also scored for Philadelphia. Recchi’s 400th NHL goal made it 5-3 with 1:26 left.