Avalanche Gets Even With Wild

Brian Willsie scored his first goal of the season -- and first career playoff goal -- and Patrick Roy made 24 saves as the Colorado Avalanche beat the Minnesota Wild, 3-2, Saturday at Denver to even their first-round Western Conference playoff series at 1-1.

The best-of-seven series moves to Minnesota for Games 3 and 4 on Monday and Wednesday.

Willsie scored at 5:49 of the third period after Dan Hinote won a faceoff in the right circle. Hinote skated toward the goal, took Rob Blake’s pass and made a blind pass back to Willsie in the slot.

Willsie’s goal gave Colorado a seemingly comfortable 3-1 lead, but Andrew Brunette scored a power-play goal with 35.6 seconds left.

Ottawa 3, New York Islanders 0 -- At least for one night, Marian Hossa and the Senators proved they could live up to being playoff favorites.

Hossa scored twice and Patrick Lalime got his fifth career playoff shutout as the top-seeded Senators evened their first-round Eastern Conference series at Ottawa.

Ottawa was winless in nine games as the higher seed in a playoff series after the Islanders’ 3-0 victory in Wednesday’s series opener.

Washington 6, Tampa Bay 3 -- Jaromir Jagr had two goals and two assists at Tampa, Fla., and the Capitals took a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series.

Peter Bondra also scored two goals and had an assist to put the sixth-seeded Capitals in position to eliminate the third-seeded Lightning by winning Games 3 and 4 at home Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Lightning have not won in Washington since Nov. 4, 1998 -- a span of 11 games.

Vancouver 2, St. Louis 1 -- Trent Klatt and Ed Jovanovski scored power-play goals and Dan Cloutier made 26 saves at Vancouver as the Canucks evened their first-round playoff series.

Pavol Demitra scored a power-play goal with 54.1 seconds left, but the Blues couldn’t put the tying goal past Cloutier, who stopped 11 shots in the third period.

St. Louis had to play without captain Al MacInnis, who was forced out of the game because of an undisclosed upper body injury.

The 39-year-old defenseman took a hit from 245-pound forward Todd Bertuzzi during a Vancouver power play two minutes into the first period. MacInnis appeared to hurt his right shoulder and didn’t return.