Devils Top Hurricanes in Shootout

The New Jersey Devils don't seem to have any lingering hangover from their second-round playoff loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. <br/><br/>New Jersey has faced the defending Stanley Cup champions twice

Wednesday, November 8th 2006, 6:14 am

By: News On 6

The New Jersey Devils don't seem to have any lingering hangover from their second-round playoff loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

New Jersey has faced the defending Stanley Cup champions twice this season and come out victorious in both meetings.

John Madden scored in the sixth round of a shootout Tuesday night for a 3-2 victory over the Hurricanes, who knocked the Devils out of last season's playoffs.

``Anytime you can beat a great hockey club like the Carolina Hurricanes, it's a great feeling,'' Madden said. ``We had to battle back late in the third, but we played a pretty solid game against a team that has a lot of weapons.''

Madden whipped a forehand over Cam Ward's stick, sending the Devils to their fourth victory in five games.

``I thought he might be a little overanxious and move across,'' Madden said. ``He didn't and he got a piece of it but it mashed its way into the net.''

Madden had to wait for his chance as the sixth man up for Devils coach Claude Julien.

``At one point, you go with your gut instinct,'' Julien said. ``For me, it was his time to go and I had a good feeling he'd be able to score.''

Earlier in the shootout, Brian Gionta scored for New Jersey in the second round before Rod Brind'Amour countered for Carolina in the third.

``We should have won this,'' Brind'Amour said. ``We started running around in the last minute of the hockey game, which we shouldn't have been doing.''

In other NHL games, it was: Montreal 3, Edmonton 2 in a shootout; Los Angeles 6, Colorado 5; Calgary 3, Dallas 1; and San Jose 3, Minnesota 1.

The Devils got regulation goals from Travis Zajac and Jim Dowd, who sent the game into overtime by scoring with a minute remaining. Martin Brodeur finished with 26 saves.

Eric Staal and Brind'Amour scored for Carolina.

``I think we played better than them, but it didn't happen for us tonight,'' Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said. ``It seemed like we were down in their end an awful lot. I thought we did what we wanted to do but we couldn't get the puck in the net.''

Canadiens 3, Oilers 2, SO

Alex Kovalev scored on Montreal's fourth attempt in a shootout, giving the host Canadiens a win over Edmonton.

Using a similar move to the one Canadiens captain Saku Koivu successfully completed to open the shootout, Kovalev deked Dwayne Roloson before tucking a forehand inside the left post.

David Aebischer, who made 26 saves during the game, stopped Jarret Stoll on Edmonton's final attempt after allowing Ales Hemsky's goal on the Oilers' second shot.

Edmonton's Petr Sykora scored his team-leading ninth goal 15:30 into the third to tie it at 2 after 19-year-old Canadiens rookie Guillaume Latendresse scored his first NHL goal at the beginning of the period.

Craig Rivet also scored for Montreal, which has won three of four.

Brad Winchester scored his first career regular-season goal for Edmonton, which has lost three straight and five of six.

Kings 6, Avalanche 5

Craig Conroy and Scott Thornton each scored for the first time this season, Sean Avery had two goals and visiting Los Angeles outlasted Colorado.

Tyler Arnason set up a frenetic finish when he scored with 2:01 left, and the Avalanche had a power play for the final 1:17 after Mattias Norstrom was called for high sticking. But Colorado couldn't tie it.

Avs goalie Jose Theodore, who was seeking his first four-game winning streak since Oct. 31 to Nov. 8, 2005, with Montreal, allowed four goals in the second period and was replaced by Peter Budaj with Colorado trailing 5-2.

Lubomir Visnovsky and Anze Kopitar also scored for the Kings. Alexander Frolov had three assists.

Joe Sakic, Brett McLean, Marek Svatos and Wojtek Wolski had goals for Colorado.

Flames 3, Stars 1

Tony Amonte scored twice to help host Calgary beat Dallas.

After scoring a career-low 14 goals in his first season with the Flames, Amonte was off to a similar start this season with just one goal in 13 games before breaking out for his first two-goal game since March 27, 2003, with Philadelphia.

Miikka Kiprusoff shut out the Stars for the final 45 minutes and finished with 25 saves. Kristian Huselius added an empty-net goal.

Antti Miettinen scored for Dallas (11-4-0), which has lost consecutive games for the first time this season.

Sharks 3, Wild 1

Joe Thornton scored his first goal at home this season and Evgeni Nabokov made 22 saves in San Jose's victory over Minnesota.

Patrick Marleau and Mike Grier also scored for the Sharks, who avenged a decisive 4-1 loss to Minnesota last month with two early goals followed by two periods of strong defense. Nabokov was outstanding in his second win in five starts, snapping the Wild's four-game winning streak at the Shark Tank.

Todd White scored and Manny Fernandez stopped 27 shots for Minnesota in the opener of a five-game road trip. The Wild have lost three of four after a 9-1 start, including their first back-to-back defeats of the season.