Flyers soar 3-1 over Capitals; Avs outplay Sharks 3-1

Sunday, October 20th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PHILADELPHIA (AP) _ John LeClair and Simon Gagne scored 1:39 apart in the second period to lead the unbeaten Philadelphia Flyers to a 3-1 victory over the Washington Capitals on Saturday.

Donald Brashear made it 3-1 just 2:01 into the third period for the Flyers, 3-0-2 under new coach Ken Hitchcock.

Washington had won its first three games _ its best start since opening with four victories in 1997-98.

Goaltender Robert Esche, making his first start for Philadelphia, stopped 23 shots.

Olaf Kolzig made 30 saves for the Capitals, who led 1-0 on Robert Lang's power-play goal 4:16 in.

Avalanche 3, Sharks 1

In San Jose, California, Serge Aubin scored the tiebreaking goal with 5:35 left to lift the Colorado Avalanche over the San Jose Sharks.

Peter Forsberg scored his third goal at 8:05 of the middle period on a power play to pull Colorado into a 1-1 tie. The Avalanche made it 3-1 when Milan Hejduk scored into an empty net with two seconds remaining.

San Jose took a 1-0 lead at 11:53 of the first period on Mike Ricci's power-play goal.

Patrick Roy made 21 saves in improving to 22-6-4 against the Sharks. San Jose rookie Vesa Toskala made 36 saves.

Blue Jackets 4, Panthers 1

In Columbus, Ohio, Andrew Cassels scored his first goal in a Blue Jackets uniform and added two assists against the Florida Panthers.

David Vyborny, a healthy scratch in Columbus' first two home games, and Grant Marshall each also had a goal and an assist for the Blue Jackets, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Ray Whitney had two assists, and Geoff Sanderson added an empty-net goal.

The Blue Jackets tied a team record by scoring a power-play goal for the fifth game in a row.

Denis Shvidki scored the lone Panthers goal at 16:28 by beating Marc Denis, who made 26 saves.

Coyotes 3, Sabres 2

In Buffalo, New York, Tony Amonte's first goal of the season and first with Phoenix helped the Coyotes snap a two-game losing streak.

Daymond Langkow and Mike Johnson also scored for the Coyotes. Chris Gratton and Taylor Pyatt had the goals for Buffalo.

Sean Burke made 28 saves for Phoenix, and Mika Noronen turned aside 27 shots in his first start for Buffalo.

Sabres defenseman Jason Woolley picked up an uncharacteristic 19 minutes in penalties, including 17 in a first-period fight with Langkow. Woolley only had 34 penalty minutes last season.

Islanders 5, Thrashers 4

In Atlanta, Jason Wiemer and Claude Lapointe scored third-period goals as New York extended its unbeaten streak to three games with a victory over the winless Thrashers.

The Islanders are 2-0-1 since dropping their first two games. Atlanta, which has surrendered 13 goals in two nights, dropped to 0-4-0-1. It is the worst five-game start in Atlanta's four seasons.

The Thrashers tied it at 3 with two goals in a 2:36 span early in third period. Dan Snyder brought Atlanta within one goal, and Kirill Safronov scored his first career on a beautiful blind behind-the-back pass from Lubos Bartecko.

New York outshot Atlanta 42-23 and the teams combined to go 1-for-14 on the power play.

Predators 2, Rangers 2

In New York, Scottie Upshall scored a breakaway goal late in the second period to lift winless Nashville into a tie with the New York Rangers.

Nashville (0-2-1-2), which lost in overtime at the New York Islanders on Tuesday and again in New Jersey on Friday, also got a goal from Kimmo Timonen. The Predators didn't lose an overtime game last season, going 5-0-13.

Pavel Bure scored on a penalty shot, and Dale Purinton added his first career NHL goal for New York.

Maple Leafs 2, Canadiens 2

In Montreal, Tomas Kaberle scored a short-handed goal with 8:15 left in the third period as Toronto tied the Canadiens.

Travis Green also scored for the Maple Leafs, who got 29 saves from Ed Belfour.

Jeff Hackett made 32 saves in his second straight start in place of NHL MVP Jose Theodore. Richard Zednik and Andreas Dackell scored for Montreal.

Hurricanes 3, Devils 1

In Raleigh, North Carolina, Rod Brind'Amour scored short-handed less than 6 minutes in and Kevin Weekes stopped 26 shots as Carolina beat New Jersey.

New Jersey failed to start 4-0 for the first time since 1993-94, going 1-for-7 on the power play to run its NHL-worst mark with the man advantage to 2-for-28.

Weekes, who has started the last three games for the slumping Arturs Irbe, came within 52.3 seconds of getting his ninth career shutout and first in the regular season for Carolina since being acquired from Tampa Bay last March. But Brian Gionta scored on a rebound in the final seconds.

Jeff O'Neill and Ron Francis also scored for the Hurricanes.

Penguins 3, Lightning 3

In Pittsburgh, Dan Boyle and Martin St. Louis scored third-period goals to erase a pair of one-goal deficits and lift unbeaten Tampa Bay into a tie with Pittsburgh.

Johan Hedberg stopped 38 shots, including several during Tampa Bay's two-man advantage that lasted 1:40 midway through the third period.

Tampa Bay (3-0-1), off to the best start in franchise history, also rallied from a two-goal deficit Friday.

The tie snapped a three-game winning streak for Pittsburgh (3-1-1). The Penguins are 9-1-2 in their last 12 home games against Tampa Bay.

Alexei Kovalev, Jan Hrdina, and Dan Lacouture scored for Pittsburgh.

The Lightning didn't manage a shot until the game was almost nine minutes old.

Red Wings 5, Wild 3

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Darren McCarty scored two goals as Detroit ended Minnesota's season-opening unbeaten streak at four.

Curtis Joseph made 19 saves and Nicklas Lidstrom, Brett Hull and Henrik Zetterberg added goals to help the Stanley Cup champion Red Wings rebound from a home loss to Montreal on Thursday night.

Wes Walz, Bill Muckalt and Antti Laaksonen scored for Minnesota, which dropped to 3-1-1.

McCarty scored the winning goal in the second period to hush the 19,344 fans, the largest crowd to attend a hockey game in the state of Minnesota.

Blues 5, Stars 3

In St. Louis, Doug Weight scored two power-play goals in the third period to lift St. Louis over Dallas.

St. Louis goalie Curtis Sanford made 23 saves in his first NHL start. He stopped 12 of 13 shots in his debut Thursday against Columbus.

The Stars are winless in seven games in St. Louis, dating to Nov. 9, 1999.

Flames 5, Blackhawks 2

In Chicago, Chris Drury had two goals and an assist as Calgary beat the Blackhawks.

Jarome Iginla's power-play goal opened the scoring at 11:04 of the first period, and Bob Boughner gave Calgary a 3-0 lead at 2:51 of the second.

Steve Thomas cut the lead to 3-1 at 8:58 in the second. Steve Sullivan brought the Blackhawks within one with 2:58 remaining in the second.

Martin Gelinas also scored for Calgary.

Roman Turek stopped 33 shots to earn his second win of the season.

Bruins 4, Oilers 3

In Edmonton, Alberta, Ivan Huml scored the go-ahead goal, and fellow rookie Tim Thomas stopped 31 shots in his regular-season debut as Boston beat Edmonton.

Nick Boynton, Brian Rolston and Jozef Stumpel also scored for Boston (3-1-1). Anson Carter, Mike York and Steve Staios scored for Edmonton (1-3-1-0).

Edmonton had scored just eight times in its first four games before Saturday. In an attempt to find some offense, Oilers coach Craig MacTavish mixed up the lines.

The Oilers were 1-for-7 on the power play, and Boston went 0-for-6.

Kings 2, Canucks 2

In Los Angeles, Markus Naslund scored at 10:31 of the third period, and Peter Skudra made 14 saves to lift Vancouver into a tie with Los Angeles.

The Kings scored on both their third-period shots. They took a 2-1 lead at 5:57 when Derek Armstrong, recalled from the minors earlier in the day, scored his first goal of the season and 10th in 87 NHL games.

Mathieu Schneider tied it at 1 just 41 seconds into the third period.

Vancouver's Todd Warriner opened the scoring 13:38 into the second period.

The tie extended Los Angeles' home undefeated streak against the Canucks to 14 games.