Sabres Sweep Series With Hurricanes

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) _ The Buffalo Sabres have the Carolina Hurricanes' number _ in the regular season, that is. Nearly seven months after losing to Carolina in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals,

Friday, December 29th 2006, 6:29 am

By: News On 6

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) _ The Buffalo Sabres have the Carolina Hurricanes' number _ in the regular season, that is. Nearly seven months after losing to Carolina in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Sabres beat the Hurricanes 4-1 on Thursday night to sweep the four-game season series with the Stanley Cup champions.

``Every time we play them we think about it,'' said Jason Pominville, one of the Buffalo scorers. ``We still have that in the back of our minds, but this year is a different year. Hopefully, we can make it to that next step.''

Chris Drury, Ales Kotalik and Thomas Vanek also scored, and Ryan Miller made 29 saves, allowing only Craig Adams' short-handed goal with 1:09 left. Kotalik converted a penalty shot with 42 seconds left after he was hauled down by Erik Cole.

``I don't know how many months it's been, but it's always there,'' Drury said. ``But I certainly liked the way we played them this year.''

In other NHL games Thursday night, it was: Philadelphia 4, Tampa Bay 3; Phoenix 3, San Jose 2; Detroit 7, Columbus 4; and Los Angeles 7, Edmonton 4.

Buffalo outscored the Hurricanes 19-11 in the four games this season.

``Revenge or not, they've got a good team,'' Hurricanes defenseman Mike Commodore said. ``They just had our number in the regular season.''

Buffalo won for third time in its last four games and ended Carolina's season-best winning streak at six.

``They're a good team and we want to beat them,'' Miller said. ``They were on a bit of a roll, so we wanted to come out in our building and establish a good game.''

Drury made it 2-0 early in the second period with his 20th goal, and Vanek pushed Buffalo's lead to 3-0 with his 20th late in the period.

``They scored and got a little momentum, then came down and got another one,'' Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said. ``The chances were even in the second period, yet they grabbed a 3-0 lead.''

Flyers 4, Lightning 3

At Tampa, Fla, Simon Gagne scored two goals, and Peter Forsberg had three assists to help Philadelphia end a franchise-record, 10-game losing streak.

Alexei Zhitnik and Sami Kapanen also scored for the Flyers in their first win since beating the New York Islanders on Nov. 30. Martin St. Louis, Filip Kuba and Ruslan Fedotenko scored for the Lightning.

Coyotes 3, Sharks 2

At San Jose, Calif., Yanic Perreault scored on a wraparound with 40.9 seconds to play, and Phoenix rebounded after blowing a two-goal lead.

Curtis Joseph made 27 saves and kept Phoenix in the game in the third period. Perreault then scored easily when goalie Vesa Toskala got entangled with defenseman Scott Hannan, leaving the net unguarded as Perreault came in from behind.

Oleg Saprykin and captain Shane Doan scored early goals for the last-place Coyotes in the first game of the home-and-home series. Joe Thornton and Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored in the second period for the Sharks.

Red Wings 7, Blue Jackets 4

At Columbus, Ohio, Dan Cleary scored the winning goal with 5:19 left to complete his first career three-goal game and cap Detroit's comeback.

Pavel Datsyuk had two goals and an assist for Detroit, and Henrik Zetterberg and Danny Markov each had a goal and an assist. David Vyborny had a goal and an assist for Columbus, and Ron Hainsey, Dan Fritsche and Adam Foote also scored.

Kings 7, Oilers 4

At Edmonton, Alberta, Alexander Frolov had a goal and two assists for Los Angeles.

Dustin Brown, Rob Blake, Lubomir Visnovsky, Alyn McCauley, Sean Avery and Brian Willsie also scored for the Kings. Ryan Smyth, Daniel Tjarnqvist, Jarret Stoll and Fernando Pisani scored for Edmonton.