Habs win in romp

Montreal scores 6 against N.Y. on team's 99th birthday

Steve Begin and Maxim Lapierre each had a goal and an assist, and the Montreal Canadiens scored three times in the first period to celebrate their 99th birthday with a 6-2 victory over the visiting New York Rangers on Thursday night.

Andrei Kositsyn, Begin and Alex Tanguay scored for Montreal in the opening period. Lapierre, who set up Begin's goal, made it 4-0 early in the second.

Robert Lang scored 49 seconds into the third, and Matt D'Agostini scored with 49.5 seconds remaining to help the Canadiens improve to 3-0 on their franchise-record seven-game homestand. Georges Laraque and Andrei Markov each had two assists for Montreal.

Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes scored in the second for New York, which beat Pittsburgh 3-2 in a shootout Wednesday night for its fourth win in five games.

As part of the team's centennial year celebrations, Montreal wore throwback uniforms in the style of the franchise's first Stanley Cup champions in 1915-16, one year prior to the NHL's formation.

Price, who stopped 18 shots, wore brown goalie pads and gloves as part of the promotion, the first of four variations of retro jerseys from the Canadiens' first decade that the team will wear for certain games over the course of the next 12 months.

Kostitsyn opened the scoring 9:52 in with his third goal in three games.

Begin put Montreal up 2-0 at 10:37 when he scored for the second time in three games. He tipped Lapierre's pass beyond Henrik Lundqvist from the edge of the crease.

Tanguay gave the Canadiens a 3-0 lead before the end of the period with his team-leading ninth goal at 17:37. Lapierre made it a four-goal lead with his fourth goal 3:35 into the second, before fighting with Petr Prucha midway through the period.

Naslund drew the Rangers to 4-1 on a power play at 13:02 when he deflected Paul Mara's shot past Price for his 10th goal.

Dawes got his third goal at 18:43 as New York closed to 4-2.

ALSO THURSDAY

RED WINGS 6, CANUCKS 5: Jiri Hudler and Dan Cleary each scored twice and host Detroit broke a tie with a three-goal outburst early in the third period.

Nicklas Lidstrom added a goal and two assists, Derek Meech scored his first career goal for Detroit, and Chris Osgood made 20 saves.

Henrik Sedin had a goal and an assist, and Taylor Pyatt, Kyle Wellwood, Mason Raymond and Alex Burrows added goals for Vancouver.

CAPITALS 5, ISLANDERS 2: Donald Brashear scored his first goal of the season with 13:10 left to snap a tie for host Washington.

Brashear, a rugged winger known more for his fighting than his skating, had gone 37 games without a goal before giving Washington a 3-2 lead.

Eric Fehr added a power-play goal with 3:46 to go, and Nicklas Backstrom scored into an empty net with 50 seconds remaining. Alex Ovechkin had a goal and two assists, and Viktor Kozlov also scored. Mark Streit and Trent Hunter scored for New York.

DEVILS 3, FLYERS 2 (OT): Patrik Elias scored the tying and winning goals for visiting New Jersey.

Elias scored the winner at 2:46 of the extra period. He stole the puck in the slot, split two defenders and then put a backhander through goalie Martin Biron's pads.

Elias tied it with 1:30 left in regulation with a slap shot from just inside the blue line that trickled off Biron's midsection into the net.

Scottie Upshall gave the Flyers a 2-1 lead on a fluke play at 15:32 of the third period. His centering pass bounced off New Jersey defender Bryce Salvador into the net.

Zach Parise added a goal and an assist for the Devils, who have won six of their last seven games. Kimmo Timonen scored for the Flyers.

BRUINS 3, LIGHTNING 1: David Krejci scored the tiebreaking short-handed goal in the third period for visiting Boston.

Phil Kessel had two goals, including an empty-netter with less than second remaining, for the Bruins, who are 12-1-1 since the start of November. Tim Thomas made 30 saves to improve to 7-1-1 in his last nine starts.

Martin St. Louis scored for Tampa Bay. The Lightning has lost six in a row and 13 of 15.

PANTHERS 2, SABRES 1: Craig Anderson made 45 saves, and Gregory Campbell and Keith Ballard scored 35 seconds apart in the second period for host Florida.

Campbell scored for the third consecutive game and also had an assist for the Panthers. Florida has won three in a row and is 4-0-2 in its last six.

Ales Kotalik scored for Buffalo. The Sabres have lost eight of their last 10 and have scored only 19 goals during their slide.

PREDATORS 3, AVALANCHE 2: Vernon Fiddler, Shea Weber and David Legwand scored first-period goals, and Pekka Rinne made 19 saves for host Nashville.

Ryan Smyth and Wojtek Wolski had first-period scored goals for Colorado.

The Predators are 7-0-0 when leading after the first period and 10-2-0 when scoring the first goal. They're 8-1-0 when Weber scores.

LATE WEDNESDAY

OILERS 5, STARS 2: Mathieu Garon made 23 saves to help Edmonton beat visiting Dallas.

Shawn Horcoff, Lubomir Visnovsky, Marc-Antoine Pouliot, Ales Hemsky and Andrew Cogliano scored for Edmonton.

Mike Modano scored twice in third period for Dallas to push his record for NHL goals by a U.S.-born player to 539.