Lemieux Stars in Big Rally

At age 40, Mario Lemieux still has some big games left in him. This one came exactly when the Pittsburgh Penguins needed it, down four goals in the opening 9:50 of a game that was quickly developing into their 10th consecutive loss.

Lemieux scored twice during a five-point night and the host Penguins scored seven consecutive goals, including a club record-tying six on the power play, to beat the reeling Atlanta Thrashers, 7-5, Thursday night to win for the first time this season and improve to 1-4-5 after their longest season-opening winless stretch in franchise history.

“It’s been frustrating for all of us,” Lemieux said. “It was scary early in the game, but we stayed in there and made a game of it.”

Lemieux, Sergei Gonchar and John LeClair scored twice on the power play as all but one of the Penguins’ seven consecutive goals against goalie Steve Shields came with a man advantage.

Colorado 6, Vancouver 2 -- Milan Hejduk scored his 200th goal to help the Avalanche beat the Canucks and Todd Bertuzzi, who was booed throughout his first game at Denver since breaking Avalanche forward Steve Moore’s neck.

“It is what it is,” Bertuzzi said continually when asked for his thoughts on the reception, which included two fans in orange prison jumpsuits and others sitting behind cardboard jail bars and wearing fake neck braces.

Pierre Turgeon scored twice for the Avalanche to reach 499 for his career as Colorado ended the Canucks’ six-game winning streak.

Phoenix 3, Calgary 2 -- Curtis Joseph needed to make only 13 saves at Phoenix to become the ninth NHL goalie to reach 400 victories.

Boston 2, Toronto 1 -- Hannu Toivonen made 36 saves, and Jiri Slegr and Sergei Samsonov scored for the Bruins at Boston.

New York Rangers 3, New York Islanders 1 -- Jaromir Jagr assisted on first-period goals by Martin Straka and Fedor Tyutin for the host Rangers.

Philadelphia 5, Florida 4 -- Peter Forsberg tied it in the final minute of regulation, and Joni Pitkanen scored early in overtime for the host Flyers.

Ottawa 4, Montreal 3 -- Jason Spezza scored 2:48 into overtime to lift the Senators at Ottawa.

Detroit 5, Chicago 2 -- Manny Legace made 21 saves at Detroit to become the first NHL goalie to win 10 games in a month.