Sakic Is Latest Member of 500-Goal Club

Joe Sakic scored the 500th goal of his career, but Brendan Morrison and Daniel Sedin scored power-play goals to lead the Vancouver Canucks over the Colorado Avalanche, 3-1, Wednesday night at Vancouver, Canada.

Mattias Ohlund also scored for Vancouver, which won for the first time in three games.

Dan Cloutier made 26 saves for the Canucks, who moved back into first place in the Northwest Division with their 12th victory in 15 games. Vancouver is one point ahead of Minnesota and nine ahead of Colorado.

Patrick Roy made several spectacular stops and finished with 25 saves, but it wasn’t enough for the Avalanche, which has one victory in its last six games.

Sakic, who grew up in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, picked up his milestone goal on a power play, scoring on a wrist shot off a nifty pass from Derek Morris 4:25 into the second period.

Sakic received a standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 18,422. Play was halted momentarily, and Sakic’s teammates came off the bench to congratulate him as he waved to his parents in the stands.

Sakic became the 31st player to score 500 goals or more.

Chicago 4, New York Rangers 3 -- Theo Fleury scored in his return to Madison Square Garden, Eric Daze had three goals and the Blackhawks dealt the Rangers their fourth consecutive loss.

Chicago defenseman Nathan Dempsey had a career-high four assists.

Mikael Samuelsson, Petr Nedved and Rico Fata scored for New York, which had a season-best 49 shots, including 20 in a frantic third period, at Jocelyn Thibault.

Edmonton 4, Carolina 1 -- Mike York scored two goals and Tommy Salo stopped 36 shots at Edmonton, where the Oilers scored three goals in an 11-minute span of the second period to win their third in a row.

Ryan Smyth and Mike Comrie scored for the Oilers, who won for the ninth time in 11 games.

Sean Hill scored for the Hurricanes, who lost their fourth in a row.

Hill’s goal at 10:41 of the third period ended Edmonton’s shutout streak at 173 minutes 41 seconds.

Phoenix 4, Atlanta 2 -- Shane Doan scored a tiebreaking goal early in the third period, goaltender Brian Boucher made 16 saves and the Coyotes rallied from a 2-0 deficit for their first home victory in 10 games (1-4-4-1).

Landon Wilson had a goal and an assist, and Danny Markov and Ladislav Nagy also scored for Phoenix.

Boucher gave up goals to Yannick Tremblay and Tony Hrkac in the first 27:08, but made 10 saves after that, including eight in the third period.

It was Atlanta’s seventh loss in as many games against the Coyotes, four at Phoenix.