Blackhawks, Flyers end long losing streaks

Monday, January 29th 2007, 6:56 am

By: News On 6

The Chicago Blackhawks used a rare power-play goal to snap their 10-game losing streak. Philadelphia goalie Antero Niittymaki ended an even longer personal drought while helping the Flyers end a nine-game skid.

Denis Arkhipov's second goal of the game, on the power play at 2:53 of overtime, lifted the Blackhawks to a 4-3 victory over the Calgary Flames on Sunday.

``It's a big win for us,'' Arkhipov said. ``It's a special feeling.''

Arkhipov beat Miikka Kiprusoff with a high screened shot from the right circle for Chicago's first power-play score in eight chances during the game. The Blackhawks are 4-for-50 with the man advantage in their last 11 games, and have converted a league-low 10.9 percent this season.

``It's just taking shots,'' Arkhipov added.

Niittymaki stopped 37 shots and Jeff Carter scored two goals, including the game-winner with 1:02 remaining, as Philadelphia beat the Atlanta Thrashers 2-1. The Flyers avoided matching a franchise-record 10 game losing streak, set earlier this season in December.

Niittymaki got his first win since a 3-2 victory over the New York Islanders on Nov. 30, snapping a personal 15-game skid.

``It went pretty well. It was fun to play. I felt pretty good. I'm 1-15 in my last 16 games now,'' said Niittymaki, who improved to 5-0 in his career against the Thrashers. ``Hopefully we'll play more games against Atlanta. ``Things go pretty well when we play against them.

In other NHL games Sunday, it was: Anaheim 4, Dallas 1; Detroit 3, Colorado 1; and Vancouver 3, San Jose 1.

Chicago won for the first time since Jan. 2 in St. Louis, ending an 0-8-2 slide. The Blackhawks also won at home for the first time since Dec. 26, stopping an 0-6-2 run.

``Some nights, no luck,'' Blackhawks coach Denis Savard said. ``Finally we got a little luck, but we earned it big time, big time.''

The game-winner was Arkhipov's second dramatic goal of the game. He had deflected in Duncan Keith's shot from left wing with 44 seconds left in regulation to tie it at 3 and set up overtime. James Wisniewski and Jeff Hamilton also scored in regulation for the Blackhawks.

Alex Tanguay had scored on a breakaway with 3:17 left in regulation to give Calgary a 3-2 lead. Tanguay also assisted on second-period, power-play goals by Daymond Langkow and Kristian Huselius, scored 1:49 apart, that erased Chicago's 2-0 lead.

The Flyers improved to 16-4-6 against the Thrashers, including 8-2-3 at Atlanta.

The Thrashers' Ilya Kovalchuk opened the scoring with his 27th goal at 11:21 of the first period. Carter tied it at 11:43 of the second, beating Lehtonen from in close on a power play and then got the winner late in the third.

``Finally, we got a win. We've been close a lot lately,'' Flyers captain Peter Forsberg said. ``We sat back and let Niittymaki win it for us.''

Philadelphia was 1-for-2 on the power play and held Atlanta to 0-for-6, including a two-man advantage for nearly 2 minutes early in the second period.

``We've played a lot of close games,'' Carter said. ``We just weren't able to close them out. We talked going into the third period about having a good feeling.''

Red Wings 3, Avalanche 1

Pavel Datsyuk and Tomas Holmstrom each had a goal and an assist to lift host Detroit. Kirk Maltby got the other goal, and Dominik Hasek made 11 saves as the Red Wings snapped their three-game losing streak.

Paul Stastny got the Avalanche's goal and Jose Theodore stopped 38 shots.

Ducks 4, Stars 1

Andy McDonald scored twice and Teemu Selanne had a goal and an assist for host Anaheim. Jean-Sebastien Giguere made 30 saves after missing 11 games with a groin strain, improving to 12-2-0 over his last 14 starts.

Dustin Penner also scored for the Ducks, who won for only the third time in 12 games and snapped a four-game losing streak.

Jere Lehtinen scored the Stars' goal on a penalty shot with 12:14 to play.

Canucks 3, Sharks 1

Taylor Pyatt scored on a power play midway through the second period and set up Daniel Sedin's winning goal two minutes later as Vancouver rallied to beat visiting San Jose.

Brendan Morrison added an empty-net goal with 9.5 seconds left, and Roberto Luongo stopped 39 shots as the Canucks improved to 11-1-2 since Dec. 25 and moved into first place in the Northwest Division, one point ahead of Calgary.

Rookie Joe Pavelski scored his 10th goal for the Sharks, who lost for the third time in 11 games.