Blues Spoil Sakic’s Return

The $21-million man returned to the Colorado Avalanche lineup at St. Louis on Saturday and scored a goal, but could not prevent the Avalanche from suffering its fourth straight loss as the Blues won, 4-1.

After sitting out 18 games because of a knee injury, star center Joe Sakic, playing in his first game since Feb. 7, logged 20 minutes 25 seconds. However, Peter Forsberg, Colorado’s other star center, still was bothered by a sore groin in warmups and did not play.

Thanks largely to Geoff Courtnall’s 30th goal and two assists by Pierre Turgeon, the Blues extended their winning streak to five with their 10th victory in their last 11 games.

The win also gave St. Louis (41-26-8) its first 90-point season since 1993-94, and only the fourth in its history.

Blues’ goalie Grant Fuhr made 20 saves to record career victory No. 380, moving him ahead of Colorado’s Patrick Roy and into sole possession of fifth place on the all-time list.

New York Islanders 3, New York Rangers 0--The Islanders shut out the Rangers at Uniondale, N.Y. But all the players were talking about was the brawl that took place with 6:59 left in the game and ended with 10 players getting ejected for a total of 154 penalty minutes.

“It’s nice to see the guys stand up for each other,” Islander defenseman Rich Pilon said. “There’s one more game between us, and it’ll probably be just as ugly.”

Goalies Tommy Salo and Wade Flaherty combined to stop 17 shots for the shutout and Claude Lapointe, Zigmund Palffy and Joe Sacco scored goals as the Islanders continued to dominate their metropolitan-area rivals. They are 3-0-1 against the Rangers with the final game coming up April 15 at Madison Square Garden.

The Islanders have never finished a season undefeated against the Rangers in their 27-year history.

Having won all three games in Uniondale, the Islanders wind up undefeated at home against the Rangers for the first time since the 1992-93 season.

The loss extended the Rangers’ winless streak to eight games (0-7-1). In addition, they have lost seven straight on the road.

Detroit 3, Chicago 2--Brendan Shanahan converted a rebound of Dmitri Mironov’s shot from the right point with 2.8 seconds remaining in regulation to break a tie at Chicago.

The good news for the Blackhawks was that their enforcer, Bob Probert, believed to be out for the season after undergoing surgery for a torn rotator cuff in December, returned just in time for the playoff stretch run.

San Jose 5, Toronto 3--Jeff Friesen scored a pair of goals at Toronto to help the Sharks pull into a tie with idle Edmonton for the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference. Each team has six games remaining.

Toronto, nine points behind the Sharks and Oilers with seven games left, has lost three in a row.

Pittsburgh 4, Tampa Bay 1--Jaromir Jagr had a power-play goal and two assists at Tampa Bay and the Penguins scored three power-play goals in all to end a five-game winless streak.

Jagr, the NHL’s scoring leader with 95 points, had been held without a goal during the club’s five-game streak.

Goaltender Tom Barrasso made 20 saves to hand the Lightning, owner of the NHL’s worst record at 17-49-9, its sixth loss in its last seven games.

Tampa Bay failed to score on seven power-play chances.

Florida 4, Philadelphia 1--With 37 saves at Philadelphia, winning goalie John Vanbiesbrouck moved past his goaltending coach, Billy Smith, into 13th place on the all-time NHL list with 306 victories.

The Panthers won for the fourth time in five games to stop the three-game winning streak of the playoff-bound Flyers.

Carolina 1, Montreal 0--Goalie Trevor Kidd stopped 24 shots at Montreal for the Hurricanes who have crept to within two points of the Ottawa Senators and the eighth and final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference by going 5-1-1 in their last seven games.