Roberts Lifts Maple Leafs

Gary Roberts’ two-point effort helped the Toronto Maple Leafs get back into first place.

Roberts had a goal and an assist, and the Maple Leafs moved into a tie for first place in the Northeast Division by rallying for a 4-2 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Monday night at Toronto.

Toronto is tied with Boston with 99 points.

“It’s just amazing how tight it really is,” Roberts said. “Every day you look at the standings and you go from second to fourth to sixth. We’re going to be doing a lot of scoreboard watching the next few days.”

Ed Belfour made 22 saves, including several impressive stops, for the Maple Leafs.

Dany Heatley and Serge Aubin scored for the Thrashers.

Ottawa 5, Tampa Bay 4 -- Chris Phillips scored four minutes into overtime at Tampa, Fla., to give the Senators a season sweep of the Eastern Conference leaders.

Ottawa moved within one point of Toronto and Boston, the co-leaders in the Northeast Division. Tampa Bay fell one point behind Detroit for the overall NHL points lead.

Daniel Alfredsson scored in the third period to become the Senators’ career goals leader with 219.

Detroit 5, Minnesota 3 -- Brendan Shanahan had a goal and an assist at Detroit to help the Red Wings reduce their magic number to one point to clinch the top-seeded spot in the Western Conference playoffs.

Darren McCarty, Jiri Fischer, Boyd Devereaux and Pavel Datsyuk also scored for the Red Wings.

Buffalo 6, Columbus 0 -- Dmitri Kalinin scored twice and Martin Biron stopped 23 shots at Buffalo, N.Y.

The Sabres extended their unbeaten streak to five games (4-0-1) and moved within three points of the New York Islanders for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Biron earned his second shutout this season and 17th of his career. It was the 100th victory of his career.

Florida 3, Carolina 1 -- Kristian Huselius and Matt Cullen scored power-play goals for the Panthers at Sunrise, Fla.

The Panthers ended a season-high five-game losing streak. It was Florida’s fifth consecutive home victory over the Hurricanes.

Vancouver 6, Phoenix 1 -- Markus Naslund scored his first goal in 11 games to help the host Canucks win their third in a row and move to within one point of first-place Colorado in the Northwest Division.

Vancouver outshot Phoenix, 45-17.