Associated Press
RALEIGH ó Chad LaRose and Rod Brind’Amour scored 28 seconds apart late in the third period, and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the New York Rangers 4-2 on Thursday for their club-record 10th straight home win.
LaRose finished with two goals, and Eric Staal had a goal and an assist for the Hurricanes. They extended their season-best winning streak to seven while surpassing the nine consecutive home-ice wins they had in 2005-06, when they went on to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.
They haven’t been to the postseason since, but they took another step toward wrapping up a playoff berth, jumping past idle Pittsburgh and Philadelphia into fourth place in the East with 93 points.
Just when the game seemed headed to overtime, LaRose and Brind’Amour turned a 2-2 tie into a comfortable win.
LaRose broke the tie when he took a feed from Jussi Jokinen as he skated across the net and tapped it past Henrik Lundqvist with 7:35 remaining. The crowd had yet to settle down when Brind’Amour made it a two-goal game by beating Lundqvist with a wrist shot from the left circle.
Canadiens 5, Islanders 1
UNIONDALE, N.Y. ó Saku Koivu scored the first of Montreal’s three power-play goals, and Alex Kovalev had three assists to help the Canadiens vault over the Rangers into seventh place in the Eastern Conference.
Bruins 2, Senators 1
BOSTON ó Tim Thomas stopped 31 shots and Boston won its fifth straight to move within one victory of clinching the best record in the East.
Blues 5, Red Wings 4
DETROIT ó David Backes scored a career-high four goals, including the go-ahead score with 4:07 left.
NOTES
Colorado leading scorer Ryan Smyth (26 goals, 33 assists) will miss the rest of the season with a fracture in his right hand. … Tampa Bay captain Vincent Lecavalier will have wrist surgery and miss the last five games of the season.