NHL ROUNDUP : Bruins Score Knockout but Lose Decision

Unfortunately for Ken Wregget, he stopped every shot he saw.

Wregget was on the way to his first shutout of the season when he was hit on the head by the puck late in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 4-0 victory over the Boston Bruins in a neutral-site game at Atlanta on Monday night.

“Instead of ducking, I should have stood up,” said Wregget, who needed two stitches to close a cut after leaving the game with 4:42 to play, having made 23 saves. “It’s nothing. This is the 14th time I’ve been cut.”

Tom Barasso, returning to action after being sidelined because of chickenpox since Jan. 9, replaced Wregget and made five saves to complete the shutout in the first regular-season NHL game played at the Omni since 1980, before the Atlanta Flames moved to Calgary.

The Penguins killed a five-minute penalty after Larry Murphy drew a game misconduct in the first minute of the third period. Boston outshot Pittsburgh, 11-2, in the final period but was turned away empty-handed by Wregget and Barasso.

Kevin Stevens scored his 41st and 42nd goals for the Penguins, who are 6-2-1 in their last nine games.

Jaromir Jagr had three assists and Rick Tocchet scored his 30th goal for Pittsburgh.

Boston defenseman Ray Bourque played his 1,000th game in the NHL.

New Jersey 5, N.Y. Rangers 4--Ken Daneyko and Alexander Semak scored 1:35 apart during the third period to lift the Devils over the Rangers at East Rutherford, N.J.

The victory ended the Devils’ 0-4-1 slump and left the Rangers winless in five games (0-3-2).

It also tightened the Patrick Division playoff race. New Jersey tied the New York Islanders for the fourth playoff spot with 54 points, one fewer than the third-place Rangers, who are 1-9-2 in their last 11 road games.

The Rangers, who got two assists from Mark Messier in his return from a wrist injury, nearly tied the score when a shot by defenseman Sergei Zubov bounced off the post with 25 seconds to play.

Zubov got the Rangers to within a goal by scoring with 56 seconds remaining.

St. Louis 3, Hartford 1--Brendan Shanahan scored two goals during the third period to power the Blues past the Whalers in a neutral-site game at Peoria, Ill.

Curtis Joseph made 31 saves for St. Louis, which moved into a tie for fourth place in the Norris Division with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Many of Joseph’s saves were crucial during a 3:26 span of the third period when Hartford had a manpower advantage.

Joseph and the Blues also fought off a five-on-three Hartford advantage that lasted 45 seconds.

The game originally was scheduled for Dec. 29 in Birmingham, Ala., but was moved because of low ticket sales. There was no such problem in Peoria, where a crowd of 9,013 filled Carver Arena to see the first ever regular-season major league game of any kind in the city.

The crowd was larger than those of five games played at Hartford this season.

Ottawa 4, Buffalo 2--Andrew McBain and Norm Maciver scored goals less than two minutes apart during the third period as the Senators rallied to beat the Sabres at Ottawa.

Buffalo took a 2-0 lead early in the first period on goals by Randy Wood and Yuri Khmylev, but All-Star goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz stopped the Sabres the rest of the way.

Ottawa made the score 2-1 when Mark Freer scored on a power play in the first period, and took the lead on the goals by McBain and Maciver. Doug Smail added an empty-net goal for the Senators.

The Senators, who have a 7-46-4 record and are 42 points behind Buffalo, have two victories, two ties and a loss in their last five games.