Special Occasion for Bruins’ Ftorek

Beating the New Jersey Devils for the first time since being fired was special for Boston Bruin Coach Robbie Ftorek.

Special in the way it felt, and the way the Bruins’ special teams played at East Rutherford, N.J.

Joe Thornton scored a power-play goal and set up another, and the Bruins killed off a pair of two-man disadvantages in defeating the Devils, 2-1, on Saturday, ending New Jersey’s six-game winning streak.

“I have nice memories of this place from the other side of the bench,” Ftorek said. “Now we have a good memory from this side of it.”

Martin Lapointe also scored, and Byron Dafoe had 19 saves as the Bruins won for the first time in four games (1-0-1-2). The game was Ftorek’s first regular-season contest at the Continental Airlines Arena since New Jersey fired him with eight games remaining in the 1999-2000 season. Larry Robinson took over and led the Devils to the Stanley Cup.

Nashville 4, Dallas 1--Denis Arkhipov scored a goal and an assist and Martin Erat had two assists as the Predators beat the Stars at Nashville, Tenn.

New York Rangers 5, Florida 3--Radek Dvorak and Michael York scored less than three minutes apart late in the third period to spark the Rangers at Sunrise, Fla.

Pittsburgh 2, Tampa Bay 1--Billy Tibbetts scored at 1:51 of overtime, giving the Penguins the victory at Pittsburgh.

Calgary 6, Montreal 2--Ron Petrovicky scored two of Calgary’s five third-period goals as the Flames won at Calgary, Alberta.

St. Louis 4, Washington 1--Pavol Demitra scored his ninth goal of the season to snap a 1-1 tie as the Blues won at St. Louis.

Ottawa 3, Buffalo 0--At Ottawa, Patrick Lalime stopped 28 shots and got his first shutout of the season to extend the Senators’ winning streak to four.

Toronto 4, Colorado 1--Alexander Mogilny scored the go-ahead goal in the third period, leading the Maple Leafs at Toronto.

New York Islanders 2, Philadelphia 1--Dave Scatchard scored the go-ahead goal late in the second period at Philadelphia and Chris Osgood stopped 28 shots as the Islanders stopped the Flyers’ three-game winning streak.

San Jose 5, Vancouver 1--Jeff Jillson, Scott Thornton and Marco Sturm set a franchise record with three goals in 36 seconds as the Sharks won at San Jose.