Pronger’s Knee Injury Will Put Him on Shelf

Defenseman Chris Pronger of the St. Louis Blues will undergo surgery today to repair torn cartilage in his left knee and will be sidelined four to six weeks, the team said.

Pronger, the NHL’s most valuable player last season, played in the last nine games after originally suffering torn cartilage in his knee during a Jan. 4 game against the Nashville Predators, the team said.

The surgery will keep the Blues’ captain out of the Feb. 4 All-Star Game at Denver, for which he was voted as a starter for the North American team.

Pronger, 26, is the Blues’ No. 2 scorer this season behind center Pierre Turgeon with six goals and 35 assists in 45 games. He’ll join defenseman Sean Hill and forwards Pavol Demitra, Michal Handzus and Lubos Bartecko on the team’s injured list.

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Dallas 2, Vancouver 1--Rookie Marty Turco stopped 24 shots at Dallas and Brett Hull scored his 637th goal as the Stars handed the Canucks their fourth consecutive loss.

Turco played in place of Ed Belfour, who was given the night off. Belfour gave up five goals in two periods in Sunday night’s 5-2 defeat at Phoenix, with Turco playing the third period.

Turco’s start was decided before Belfour struggled against the Coyotes. Turco, 6-1 in his last seven starts, was 1:42 from his second shutout when Vancouver’s Markus Naslund scored his 29th goal.

Florida 3, Boston 2--Viktor Kozlov broke a tie with 1:39 to play and goalie Roberto Luongo finally got support as the offense-starved Panthers won at Boston.

Luongo was outstanding, turning aside 33 shots, though he gave up Don Sweeney’s second goal of the season with 8:34 to play and Brian Rolston’s eighth with 2:22 remaining.

And Luongo, who lost his previous two starts by shutouts, had support from the NHL’s lowest-scoring team.

“Roberto played great,” said Pavel Bure, who assisted on all three Florida goals. “He deserved a shutout.”

New York Rangers 5, Carolina 2--Theo Fleury scored two goals and added an assist at Raleigh, N.C., as the Rangers ended a 12-game road winless streak.

“Up there in New York, we read the stats,” Ranger Coach Ron Low said. “They’ve been playing unbelievable hockey and they’ve done a lot of good things. We were terrified coming in here.

“It was a huge game for us and something we had to win. We hadn’t won on the road in God knows how long.”

The Rangers were 0-10-2 in their last 12 games away from Madison Square Garden, their worst slide in 37 seasons, but won with a three-goal second period.

New York is unbeaten in five games (4-0-1) after a nine-game winless run.

San Jose 2, Edmonton 2--Brad Stuart scored at 14:30 of the third period at Edmonton, Canada, to help the Sharks salvage a 2-2 tie, the third consecutive draw between the teams.

Stuart’s slap shot from inside the blue line cleanly beat goalie Tommy Salo.

Edmonton and San Jose have gone eight consecutive meetings with the outcome being decided by no more than one goal.

Around the League

New York Ranger forward Valeri Kamensky will be sidelined seven to 10 days because of a bruised kidney suffered in Saturday night’s 2-2 tie against the Montreal Canadiens. . . . Ted Leonsis, majority owner of the Washington Capitals, said he expects the franchise to have wider-than-expected losses of about $10 million this season because the team is drawing 24% below capacity at the MCI Center. Leonsis said he lost $20 million last season, his first in control of the team after purchasing it in July 1999. Losses are wider than expected this season even though the Capitals’ season-ticket base has more than tripled and overall home attendance is up 11%.