Penguins, Francis Do It in Grand Style

It was a grand day for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who finished it with the 1,000th victory in the history of their franchise, achieved in part with the 1,000th assist by their captain, Ron Francis.

“I’ve had a lot of special moments wearing this jersey, and that was certainly one of the highlights right there,” Francis said Saturday after the Penguins’ 4-3 victory over Philadelphia at Pittsburgh. “It was just nice to get that and the big thing is we won the hockey game. Double bonus tonight.”

Francis received a loud ovation from the standing-room crowd of 17,145, but there wasn’t much time to savor the moment. The Penguins were locked in a close game with a quality opponent.

“It’s kind of tough that you don’t get to maybe take a half-hour break and soak it in,” Pittsburgh Coach Kevin Constantine said. “You wish you could enjoy the moment, but you’re in a tough game with Philly and two seconds after he does it, you’ve got to be ready to play again.”

Jaromir Jagr scored a tiebreaking goal at 5:06 of the third period, and the Flyers’ unbeaten streak (4-0-2) ended with their first loss under Coach Roger Neilson. They had been 3-0-2 since Neilson replaced Wayne Cashman.

The Penguins are 1,000-1,101-326 in 31 seasons and are the 10th NHL franchise to win 1,000 games.

Pittsburgh’s power play ended an 0-for-13 slump and scored three times in eight chances.

One of those yielded Francis’ milestone assist, which came on Fredrik Olausson’s goal during a two-man advantage at 18:22 of the second period. Olausson one-timed Francis’ pass from 40 feet to tie the score, 2-2, and make Francis the seventh player in league history to reach 1,000 assists.

Francis also scored Pittsburgh’s first goal on a power play at 10:33.

New Jersey 3, Washington 2--Dave Andreychuk scored the game-decider late in the second period, and the Devils’ slumping power play produced two goals at East Rutherford, N.J.

Washington’s penalty killers had given up only three goals in their last 50 chances.

Vancouver 1, Toronto 1--Alexander Mogilny scored on a breakaway 62 seconds into the third period for the Canucks to earn a tie at Toronto.

Rookie Mike Johnson scored for the Maple Leafs, who entered the game six points out of a playoff position in the Western Conference. Vancouver remained two points behind the Leafs.

Colorado 2, San Jose 0--Valeri Kamensky broke a scoreless tie in the third period at San Jose and Patrick Roy stopped 23 shots in his fourth shutout of the season and 41st of his career.

Colorado’s Peter Forsberg collected the puck in the neutral zone and passed across the ice to Kamensky, who scored from the left side with 11:21 to play.

Jon Klemm had an empty-net goal with 38 seconds remaining.

Boston 2, Buffalo 1--Goaltender Byron Dafoe made 30 saves and outdueled Dominik Hasek at Buffalo as the Bruins won their fourth in a row.

Dafoe took advantage of a 2-0 lead generated with goals by Ray Bourque and Per-Johan Axelsson and faced few good scoring chances against the Sabres. The Bruins extended their road unbeaten streak to seven games (4-0-3). Hasek stopped 30 shots.

Tampa Bay 5, Florida 1--Mikael Renberg had a hat trick and the Lightning scored four power-play goals at Tampa in handing the Panthers their 12th loss in a row.

Mark Fitzpatrick made 35 saves against his former team, and the Lightning won for the fourth time in five home games.

Renberg scored all three goals in the third period, the last short-handed at 17:35.

Detroit 4, N.Y. Rangers 3--Kirk Maltby and Nicklas Lidstrom each had a goal and an assist for the Red Wings, who took a four-goal lead and hung on at New York.

The first two periods belonged to Detroit, which held the Rangers to seven shots and led, 4-0, before Alexei Kovalev scored for New York.

The Rangers made a late rush when Tim Sweeney scored and Kovalev got his second goal, but the Red Wings held on behind rookie goaltender Kevin Hodson, who was tested in the third period with 15 shots.

Wayne Gretzky’s second assist of the game--on Kovalev’s second goal--gave him 1,900 for his career.

Edmonton 2, St. Louis 0--Doug Weight scored his 24th goal in the third period and Rem Murray had a short-handed score for the Oilers, who got 20 saves from goalie Curtis Joseph in a shutout at home.

The victory allowed the Oilers to catch Phoenix for seventh place in the Western Conference and extend their lead to three points over ninth-place San Jose.