Penguins’ Road Woes Continue

One goal down and one man up, the Tampa Bay Lightning decided to go for it.

They pulled their goaltender, and pulled out a 5-5 tie Friday night with the Pittsburgh Penguins on John Cullen’s power-play goal with 43.2 seconds left at Tampa, Fla.

Pittsburgh (0-8-1) remained winless on the road. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay ended a two-game losing streak.

“We didn’t play Pittsburgh Penguin hockey,” Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr said. “We didn’t forecheck and score goals like we used to.”

With Pittsburgh left wing Shawn Antoski off for high-sticking, Tampa Bay pulled goalie Derek Wilkinson with 50 seconds remaining. Seven seconds later, Cullen sent the Ice Palace crowd into a frenzy.

Roman Hamrlik’s blue-line shot was deflected by Shawn Burr. After Ken Wregget made the initial save, Cullen stuffed the rebound past the Penguins’ goaltender.

Cullen’s tying goal overshadowed an offensive explosion by the NHL’s leading goal scorers, Jagr and Tampa Bay’s Dino Ciccarelli. Ciccarelli recorded his 15th career hat trick, while Jagr scored twice. They both have 13 goals this season.

Detroit 4, Hartford 1--The Red Wings, with early goals from Kris Draper, Martin Lapointe and Doug Brown, played another strong defensive game to stop the Whalers at Hartford, Conn.

Goaltender Mike Vernon stopped only 14 shots for the Red Wings, who have limited the opposition to two or fewer goals in 14 of 17 games this season. Darren McCarty’s empty-netter with 55 seconds remaining wrapped up the scoring and was Detroit’s 50th shot of the game.

The game was the first for Brendan Shanahan against the Whalers in Hartford since last month’s swap between the teams which brought Keith Primeau and Paul Coffey to the Whalers.

The sellout crowd of 14,660 at the Civic Center Coliseum booed Shanahan every time he was on the ice.

Colorado 4, Phoenix 1--Peter Forsberg scored twice, and Stephane Yelle added a short-handed goal at Phoenix as the Avalanche ran their unbeaten streak to eight games.

Forsberg opened the scoring with a power-play goal for the Avalanche, then put the game away by scoring short-handed with 3:07 remaining.

Keith Jones also scored a power-play goal, while Sandis Ozolinsh and Sylvain Lefebvre had two assists each. The defending Stanley Cup champions have not lost since a 5-1 setback Oct. 22 at Calgary, going 6-0-2 since.

St. Louis 4, Vancouver 2--Rookie Harry York’s fifth goal of the season eight minutes into the third period helped the Blues to the victory at Vancouver.

The loss ended the Canucks’ four-game winning streak. The Blues won for only the second time in their last six games.

York’s deflection off Al MacInnis’ shot from the point handcuffed Corey Hirsch, rolling up and over the goaltender’s shoulder into the net.

Brett Hull opened the scoring when he slid a shot under a fallen Hirsch with 51 seconds left in the first period for his seventh.

Craig MacTavish’s first goal of the season gave the Blues a 2-0 lead seven minutes into the second period.

San Jose 3, Dallas 1--First-period goals by Tony Granato and Andrei Nazarov sparked the Sharks at San Jose.

Dallas forward Dave Reid scored 37 seconds into the game on a shot from in front of the net to give the Stars a 1-0 lead.

But San Jose tied the score at 4:26 when Granato scored from close range. The Sharks then took a 2-1 lead only 2:35 later when Nazarov scored from the right faceoff area.