NHL Roundup : New Jersey Finally Gets a Victory Over Winnipeg, 4-3

A lot of teams have had their way with the New Jersey Devils the past few seasons, but the Winnipeg Jets didn’t Tuesday night.

John MacLean scored early in the third period on a 15-foot slap shot to snap a tie and lead the Devils to a 4-3 victory over the Jets at East Rutherford, N.J.

MacLean took a pass from Aaron Broten in the right faceoff circle and ripped his shot into the net off the pads of Jet goalie Brian Hayward, breaking a 3-3 tie at 4:56 of the final period.

The victory was the Devils’ third in four games and their first over Winnipeg in seven games.

“A lot of teams have had our number for a couple of years,” Devil Coach Doug Carpenter said. “L.A., Winnipeg, Hartford, Vancouver and Edmonton. It’s good that we start beating these teams, because we don’t want to give them the idea they have us in their back pockets.”

Dale Hawerchuk had tied the game, 3-3, with his second goal of the night with five seconds left in the second period. The Jet captain took a pass from Paul MacLean and beat Devil rookie goalie Craig Billington with a 50-foot slap shot to the glove side.

St. Louis 5, Toronto 1--Mark Hunter scored his first career hat trick to spark the Blues to a victory over their favorite visitors, the Maple Leafs. In its last 21 games at St. Louis, Toronto is 1-18-2.

Hunter scored in each possible manpower situation--the power play, short-handed and at even strength. Bernie Federko, who scored one goal, set him up twice. Federko’s first assist, on Hunter’s first goal of the night, was the 500th of his career.

Hunter, acquired in an off-season trade with Montreal, has 12 goals this season.

Federko set up Hunter from behind the net during a power play and gave St. Louis a 3-1 lead at 16:56 of the second period. Federko received a standing ovation from the crowd of 8,860 at The Arena for his 500th assist.

Toronto had six power-play chances but came away scoreless each time. The Maple Leafs had just 15 shots against goalie Greg Millen.

Calgary 3, Quebec 1--Center Dan Quinn scored a short-handed goal and a power-play goal within a span of two minutes in the second period and Calgary goaltender Rejean Lemelin stopped of 31 of 32 shots as the Flames dumped the Nordiques at Quebec.

Doug Risebrough also scored for Calgary while Michel Goulet ruined Lemelin’s bid for a shutout in the second period.

The loss was Quebec’s fourth in a row. The Nordiques have won 3, lost 10 and tied 1 in their last 14 games after starting the season with seven straight victories.

The Nordiques have the worst power-play record on home ice in the NHL and they showed why, capitalizing only once on eight chances. Quebec Coach Michel Bergeron shuffled his power-play lineup all night but his efforts were in vain.

Chicago 5, Vancouver 3--Bob Murray broke a 3-3 tie with a second-period, power-play goal as the Black Hawks won at Vancouver.

Murray picked off a rebound in front of Vancouver’s Richard Brodeur at 17:52 of the second period and fired it past the sprawling goalie. Troy Murray added an open-net goal in the third period for the final margin.