Devils End Lightning Unbeaten Streak

With Nikolai Khabibulin getting a night off in goal, the New Jersey Devils had no problem knocking the Tampa Bay Lightning from the unbeaten ranks.

John Madden scored twice and set up another as the goal-starved Devils had their biggest offensive effort this season in beating the surprising Lightning, 5-1, Saturday night at East Rutherford, N.J.

“They’re a team you have to respect,” Devil Coach Pat Burns said. “Four of the last five games they came back to win or tie. We had to worry about them for 60 minutes.”

Playing in a regular-season game for the first time since an 8-0 loss to San Jose on Feb. 8, 2000, goalie Kevin Hodson had little help as the Devils outshot Tampa Bay, 13-5, in taking a 2-0 first-period lead.

Martin Brodeur gave up a third-period goal by Chris Dingman in recording his league-best sixth victory.

The loss ended Tampa Bay’s franchise record eight-game unbeaten streak, which included the last game last season.

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Nashville 3, Detroit 1 -- Andreas Johansson had two goals and an assist at Nashville, and the Predators won their first game this season.

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New York Rangers 4, Toronto 3 -- Pavel Bure scored with 57 seconds left at Toronto and Mike Richter made 36 saves, and the Rangers ended a five-game winless streak.

Montreal 5, Ottawa 3 -- Jeff Hackett made 45 saves and remained undefeated in three starts, and Yanic Perreault scored twice for host Montreal.

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Chicago 3, Carolina 3 -- Boris Mironov scored with 12:28 left in the third period to cap the Blackhawks’ two-goal rally at Raleigh, N.C.

Chicago’s Phil Houston scored the 334th goal of his career.

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Boston 4, Atlanta 3 -- Brian Rolston scored his second goal of the third period on a power play with 25.3 seconds remaining at Boston, and the Bruins extended their unbeaten streak to seven games.

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Philadelphia 6, New York Islanders 2 -- Michal Handzus and Jeremy Roenick each had two goals, and Philadelphia scored twice in the first minute at Uniondale, N.Y.

The Flyers scored twice in the first 31 seconds, the third-fastest goals scored at the start of a game in league history.

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Florida 1, Washington 1 -- Roberto Luongo made 34 saves, including six in overtime, leading host Florida to a tie.

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Pittsburgh 5, Buffalo 2 -- Alexandre Daigle scored one goal -- his first since 2000 -- and set up another, and the host Penguins scored four consecutive power-play goals.

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St. Louis 4, Calgary 3 -- Rookie Eric Boguniecki scored 4:35 into overtime at Calgary, Canada, giving the Blues their sixth consecutive victory.

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Dallas 4, Vancouver 1 -- Brendan Morrow scored twice in the third period at Vancouver, Canada. Marty Turco made 27 saves for Dallas, which has a three-game unbeaten streak.

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Minnesota 6, Phoenix 1 -- Marian Gaborik scored two goals and assisted on the other four, and the Wild won for the first time ever at Phoenix. Andrew Brunette score twice for the Wild and Manny Fernandez made 39 saves.