Goalie Emery Sets a Victory Record

Ray Emery won his record ninth consecutive game to start his career, stopping 27 shots for his first shutout, to lead the Ottawa Senators over the Montreal Canadiens, 4-0, Tuesday in front of a team-record crowd of 19,858.

Emery improved to 9-0 in 12 games and moved ahead of Bob Froese, who was 8-0 to begin his career with Philadelphia in 1982-83. Emery defeated Montreal for the third time this season to improve to 6-0 in six starts -- three of his victories came in the previous two seasons.

“It just kind of worked out that over the course of the past three years, I played a couple of games here and there and I had a great team in front of me all the time so I reeled off nine kind of without recognizing it until the end of it,” Emery said.

Dany Heatley extended his point streak to 21 games, and Jason Spezza scored for the fifth consecutive game and picked up his 30th assist on Daniel Alfredsson’s team-leading 20th goal.

Heatley had an assist on Alfredsson’s goal 5 minutes 45 seconds into the second period.

The Senators won their sixth consecutive game to tie their season high.

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Buffalo 3, Pittsburgh 2 -- Ales Kotalik’s power-play goal early in the third period put Buffalo back in the lead and the Sabres won in Pittsburgh for the first time in nearly five years.

Martin Biron made 30 saves to winning his fourth in a row. The Penguins have lost three in a row.

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New Jersey 3, Boston 2 -- Alexander Mogilny scored the game-winner with 32 seconds to play at East Rutherford, N.J., and teammate Brian Gionta extended his goal-scoring streak to five games.

Martin Brodeur made 21 saves to help the Devils win their third consecutive game.

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Nashville 2, Calgary 0 -- Tomas Vokoun made 31 saves at Nashville for his 13th shutout, but first this season.

It was the Predators’ seventh win in nine games. The Flames lost their second in a row after winning 10 of 11.

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Colorado 3, Edmonton 2 -- Joe Sakic scored the tiebreaking goal with about 8 1/2 minutes left in the third period at Edmonton, Canada. Rookie goalie Mike Morrison lost for the first time in his fifth start.

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Philadelphia 4, New York Islanders 3 -- Simon Gagne scored his league-leading 22nd and 23rd goals -- including the winner with 7:13 left -- at Uniondale, N.Y.

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Carolina 4, Atlanta 3 -- Frantisek Kaberle scored 32 seconds into overtime at Atlanta to give the Hurricanes their first victory over the Thrashers in three games this season.

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Gallant goalies

Winningest NHL goalies in the regular season (*-active)

*--* GOALIE WINS 1. Patrick Roy 551 2. (tie) Ed Belfour * 447 Terry Sawchuck 447 4. Jacques Plante 435 5. Tony Esposito 423 6. Martin Brodeur * 413 7. (tie) Curtis Joseph * 407 Glenn Hall 407 9. Grant Fuhr 403 10. Mike Vernon 385

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