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NHL briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2001

Maple Leafs sweep Sens

TORONTO -- The "Battle of Ontario" turned out to be little more than a skirmish.

Yanic Perreault scored two goals, and Bryan McCabe added one Wednesday night as the Maple Leafs beat the Ottawa Senators 3-1 to complete a four-game whitewash in their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series.

"We didn't want to go back to Ottawa, for sure," said Perreault, who scored both of his goals in the first period to rally the Leafs from a 1-0 deficit. "We wanted to get it over with tonight. I thought the first 10 minutes we didn't get our legs going as much as we wanted, but after that we played well."

Toronto eliminated Ottawa in the first round for the second straight year, doing it as the seventh seed after losing all five regular-season meetings between the teams.

Curtis Joseph was virtually unbeatable in the series for the Maple Leafs, yielding three goals on 123 shots and helping them kill all 16 Senators power plays.

The Senators' playoff futility continued. They have won three games in the past four series and have gotten past the first round once in five tries.

"We didn't follow our game plan, and once we lost the first game (1-0) in overtime, we couldn't really find ourselves," Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson said. "It was just a matter of us not getting the offense going."

Ottawa got its first lead of the series when defenseman Chris Phillips' wrist shot from the top of the left faceoff circle hit Toronto's Tie Domi on the leg and deflected past Joseph 21/2 minutes into the game.

It was the first goal for Phillips, who missed the first three games with a left shoulder injury.

The Senators were able to protect the lead for all of six minutes, 26 seconds. Perreault tied it on the power play with five seconds left on Daniel Alfredsson's interference penalty. He took a pass from Aki Berg and snapped a wrist shot from the edge of the right circle over goalie Patrick Lalime's left shoulder.

Perreault put Toronto ahead for good with 1:53 left in the opening period. After a turnover behind the net, Sergei Berezin threw a backhanded pass out of the left corner, and Perreault wristed the puck over sprawling Lalime.

HURRICANES 3, DEVILS 2 (OT): Rod Brind'Amour scored 46 seconds into overtime as host Carolina, missing injured captain Ron Francis and top rookie Shane Willis, stayed alive in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal.

The defending Stanley Cup champions came out flat, took too many penalties and were stoned by Carolina goalie Arturs Irbe for most of the game to send the best-of-seven series back to New Jersey for Game 5 on Friday night.

New Jersey had outscored the Hurricanes 11-1 going in and appeared on the brink of a 4-0 sweep, but Carolina broke a six-game playoff losing streak against a team that won the previous three games 5-1, 2-0 and 4-0.

Devils defenseman Scott Stevens knocked out Francis and Willis with concussions in consecutive games, but he wasn't involved in many jarring hits this time. His only crunching open-ice check was on Sami Kapanen midway through the second with the score tied 1-1.

Kapanen and Brind'Amour, moving up to the top line to replace Francis, each had three-point nights as the Hurricanes outskated the Devils, who had won 22 of 24 overall and 11 straight road games.

CAPITALS 4, PENGUINS 3 (OT): Jeff Halpern scored Washington's first even-strength goal of the playoffs 4:01 into overtime to hold off a late rally by host Pittsburgh and evened the East series at two games each.

After Pittsburgh defenseman Marc Bergevin couldn't clear the puck from behind his net, the Capitals regained possession, and Halpern one-timed Steve Konowalchuk's pass to the left circle past rookie goalie Johan Hedberg.

It was Washington's first even-strength goal in 263 minutes-plus of play.

The Penguins continued their long-perplexing inability to put away series. They are 2-7 in Game 4s when ahead, including 0-4 at home. They are 1-4 in their past five home playoff games.

The Penguins -- 5-1 in playoff series against Washington since 1991 -- trailed 3-1 midway through the third period after three Washington power-play goals, but they tied it with man-advantage goals by Jaromir Jagr and Janne Laukkanen.

SHARKS: Defensemen Bryan Marchment and Marcus Ragnarsson were expected to play tonight in Game 5 of the West series against the Blues.

Marchment left the ice after taking a near knee-on-knee hit from St. Louis forward Keith Tkachuk in the second period of Game 4 on Tuesday. He returned after leaving briefly, but coach Darryl Sutter said Marchment had a bruised thigh.

"He can skate," Sutter said. "But he can hardly walk."

Ragnarsson played 9:53 in Game 3 and missed Game 4 with the flu. Ragnarsson also has been nursing a sore left shoulder.

- SportsTicker contributed to this report.

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