Roy Saves Day for Avalanche

Patrick Roy has made some amazing saves during a career that’s sure to land him in the Hall of Fame.

Never before had he put together a string like this one.

Roy stuffed Detroit on three consecutive shots and Radim Vrbata followed with the go-ahead goal with 7:08 left as the Colorado Avalanche extended its unbeaten streak to eight games with a 5-3 victory over the Red Wings on Saturday at Denver.

“That’s why he is the greatest,” Colorado Coach Tony Granato said of Roy. “You put him in a situation where he has got to make a key save for your team, and he makes it.”

Colorado tied the score, 3-3, on a goal by Adam Foote midway through the third, but Detroit soon came rushing back with a two-on-one.

Boyd Devereaux fired a shot from the right circle that Roy blocked with his body, then Igor Larionov tried to slip in the rebound. Roy stretched his leg to block that shot with the tip of his skate, then dived back just in time to poke away a shot by Brendan Shanahan with his stick.

“I don’t recall having a situation like this in my career,” said Roy, who stopped 31 shots. “It was desperation. I threw my leg as far as I could with my toe and then the rebound came to Shanahan, and I just put up my hand and it hit my stick.”

Roy gave up three goals for the first time in seven games but remained unbeaten in that span (5-0-2). The Avalanche are 6-0-2 the last eight games.

Milan Hejduk had his first career hat trick for Colorado, which hasn’t lost since a 4-2 setback to Detroit on Jan. 16.

Brett Hull’s bid to become the sixth NHL player with 700 goals has stalled with a seven-game drought, his longest of the season. He had three hard slap shots turned away by Roy in the first period and his only other shot got caught in traffic in the third.

Tampa Bay 4, Florida 4 -- Jay Bouwmeester scored a power-play goal with 12 seconds left in regulation and the Panthers overcame a three-goal deficit at Sunrise, Fla.

Olli Jokinen scored his 27th and 28th goals for Florida, with the second pulling the Panthers within a goal with 8:14 to play.

Viktor Kozlov also scored for the Panthers, and set up Bouwmeester’s tying slap shot that got past Nikolai Khabibulin.

Toronto 3, Montreal 1 -- Mats Sundin scored his 25th and 26th goals at Toronto to lead the Maple Leafs to their season-high fifth consecutive victory.

Jyrki Lumme also scored and goalie Ed Belfour made 32 saves.

Canadien defenseman Patrice Brisebois spent the night in hospital as a precaution after experiencing chest pains before the game.

Ottawa 3, Atlanta 1 -- Shaun Van Allen and Daniel Alfredsson scored special-teams goals and Marian Hossa scored his 34th goal into an empty net to lead the Senators at Ottawa.

Van Allen scored a short-handed goal in the first and Alfredsson broke a 1-1 tie with a power-play goal in the second.

Ilya Kovalchuk scored his 30th goal for Atlanta.

Pittsburgh 5, Boston 2 -- Mario Lemieux had four assists to become the 10th player in NHL history with 1,000 and the Penguins ended a four-game losing streak with a victory at Boston.

Alexei Kovalev and Steve McKenna each had two goals for the Penguins, who were coming off a 6-0 home loss to Florida on Thursday night. In that game, Lemieux was ejected after fighting.

Philadelphia 2, New York Rangers 1 -- Sami Kapanen scored the tiebreaking goal in his first game after being traded by the Carolina Hurricanes to lead the Flyers at Philadelphia.

Kapanen, acquired Friday, has only seven goals this season after scoring 27 last season.

It was the Flyers’ second power-play goal of the game, tying their high this season. Marcus Ragnarsson scored with the man advantage to give Philadelphia a 1-0 lead in the second.

Chicago 3, Edmonton 0 -- Jocelyn Thibault made 29 saves for his NHL-leading seventh shutout, and the Blackhawks scored three third-period goals at Edmonton, Canada.

Thibault, who has 34 career shutouts, broke a tie with Toronto’s Ed Belfour and the Mighty Ducks’ Jean-Sebastien Giguere for the league shutout lead.

Edmonton’s power play struggled, going 0 for 7 including a 37-second two-man advantage late in the first period and a 1:29 two-man advantage midway through the second.

Dallas 3, Phoenix 1 -- Jere Lehtinen’s tiebreaking goal in the second period at Phoenix helped the Stars extend their unbeaten streak to five games.

Ulf Dahlen also scored for the Stars, who have lost only once in their last 18 games (13-1-4-0) and have outscored their opponents, 61-33. Rob DiMaio had an empty-net goal with 50.1 seconds left.

New York Islanders 3, Buffalo 1 -- Oleg Kvasha scored his eighth goal of the season 8:42 into the final period to lead the Islanders at Uniondale, N.Y.

Aaron Asham tied the score earlier in the third period for the Islanders and Shawn Bates had a short-handed empty-net goal with 8.5 seconds left. The Islanders ended a two-game losing streak as Garth Snow turned aside 28.

St. Louis 4, San Jose 1 -- Keith Tkachuk scored his seventh goal in five games to break a second-period tie and lead the Blues at St. Louis.

Dallas Drake scored his third goal in four games, Pavol Demitra and Doug Weight also scored, and Al MacInnis had two assists for the Blues.

Nashville 3, Columbus 2 -- David Legwand scored two goals and Scott Walker had three assists to lead the Predators at Nashville.

Legwand’s second goal put Nashville ahead, 3-1, at 6:10 of the third period. He beat goalie Marc Denis one-on-one to his glove side.