Lightning Celebrates Title With a Victory

The Tampa Bay Lightning brought in the new season with a long-awaited celebration with their fans and a win in their first defense as NHL champions.

The Stanley Cup winners enjoyed an emotional pregame ceremony in which their championship banner was raised, and then the Lightning went out and beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-2, Wednesday night.

“This is great. We talked about getting closure. I think we all needed that,” playoff star Brad Richards said.

Vinny Prospal scored on the Lightning’s first shot of the season to help Tampa Bay build a 4-2 lead in the club’s first regular-season outing since beating Calgary in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals 16 months ago.

New Jersey 5, Pittsburgh 1 -- Zach Parise, New Jersey’s first-round draft pick in 2003, scored a power-play goal and assisted on one of Brian Gionta’s two goals in a victory over Sidney Crosby’s Penguins at East Rutherford, N.J.

Crosby, the NHL’s most-awaited rookie in a generation, had one assist.

Ottawa 3, Toronto 2 -- Daniel Alfredsson scored twice in the final six minutes of regulation and once during the first shootout in NHL history as the Senators rallied to win at Toronto.

Maple Leaf captain Mats Sundin didn’t return after being struck in the face by a puck seven minutes into the first period.

Montreal 2, Boston 1 -- Michael Ryder backhanded in the rebound of Alexei Kovalev’s shot with 11.1 seconds left for the win at Boston.

Minnesota 6, Calgary 3 -- Marc Chouinard scored three goals and Todd White added a goal and two assists at St. Paul, Minn.

Nashville 3, San Jose 2 -- Scott Hartnell broke a tie with 4:13 left at Nashville, and Paul Kariya scored his first goal in a Nashville uniform.

New York Rangers 5, Philadelphia 3 -- Jaromir Jagr scored a pair of power-play goals in the third period, leading the Rangers at Philadelphia.

Detroit 5, St. Louis 1 -- Pavel Datsyuk had a goal and an assist in the first seven minutes and the Red Wings went on to beat the Blues at Detroit.

Washington 3, Columbus 2 -- At Washington, Alexander Ovechkin became the first Capital to score twice in his NHL debut.

Buffalo 6, New York Islanders 4 -- Daniel Briere scored two goals and set up another for the Sabres at Buffalo, N.Y.

Florida 2, Atlanta 0 -- Roberto Luongo made 34 saves at Sunrise, Fla., for his 24th shutout.

Vancouver 3, Phoenix 2 -- The Canucks spoiled Wayne Gretzky’s NHL coaching debut as Markus Naslund scored two goals at Vancouver, Canada.

Edmonton 4, Colorado 3 -- Shawn Horcoff scored 24 seconds into the game and then added the game-winner with 3:18 to play at Edmonton, Canada.