NHL Last Night: Vanek Scores 20th in Sabres' Win

PITTSBURGH — Thomas Vanek's go-ahead goal, his NHL-best 20th of the season, completed a rally from two goals down and gave the Buffalo Sabres a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday.

Derek Roy, Ales Kotalik and Daniel Paille also scored for the Sabres, who have won two in a row after snapping out of a stretch of losing eight of 10.

Ruslan Fedotenko had two goals and Evgeni Malkin two assists for Pittsburgh, which has lost consecutive games for the first time since Oct. 28-30.

Panthers 4, Senators 3, OT

At Ottawa, Stephen Weiss scored with 9.1 seconds left in overtime to help Florida edge Ottawa.

Panthers goalie Craig Anderson slid across to his right to deny Mike Fisher with a sensational save moments earlier. Anderson finished with 34 saves.

Jay Bouwmeester drew Florida even for the third straight time with a power-play goal midway through the second period.

Michal Repik scored in his NHL debut earlier in the period to tie it at 2, and Nick Boynton drew the Panthers even at 1 with his third goal 11:26 into the first.

Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza scored in the second for Ottawa. Chris Kelly opened the scoring 7:31 in.

Maple Leafs 4, Islanders 2

At Toronto, Jason Blake scored the go-ahead goal late in the second period and set up two others as Toronto downed New York to end a three-game losing streak.

Ian White and Nikolai Kulemin also scored for the Maple Leafs, who dominated play but were forced to protect slim leads most of the night because of the strong play of Islanders goalie Joey McDonald and two fluky goals against Vesa Toskala.

McDonald, making his 17th straight start, stopped 33 shots and was perhaps the only bright spot for New York, which lost for the fifth time in six games.

Still, goals by Mike Sillinger and Bill Guerin left the Islanders one shot away from better things until Jeremy Williams fired home Blake's cross-ice pass 8:21 into the third to for the final margin.

Bruins 5, Lightning 3

At Boston, Milan Lucic, Phil Kessel and Michael Ryder scored in the opening 10:46 and Boston coasted past Tampa Bay for its 14th win in 16 games.

Zdeno Chara had a power-play goal in the second period and P.J. Axelsson added an empty-netter to help the Bruins win their fifth straight.

Adam Hall, Vincent Lecavalier and Paul Szczechura scored for the Lightning, who lost their eighth straight — including a 3-1 loss at home to the Bruins four days earlier.

Blues 6, Predators 3

At St. Louis, B.J. Crombeen scored three goals, including the game-winner with 3:43 to play for St. Louis.

Alexander Steen, Patrik Berglund and Brad Boyes also scored for the Blues, who are 3-0 against the Predators this season.

Nashville, which had won six of its previous seven road games, got goals from Antti Pihlstrom, Kevin Klein and J.P. Dumont.

The Blues broke a 3-3 tie when Crombeen, whose father Mike played for the Blues from 1978-83, took a feed from Steen in the slot and beat Pekka Rinne. Boyes, who scored his team-leading 14th goal of the season, deflected a point shot from Barret Jackman 45 seconds later to add insurance for St. Louis.

Crombeen added an empty-netter with 30 seconds to play for his first career hat trick.

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