NHL Roundup : Blues Check Lemieux in 4-3 Victory

The St. Louis Blues found a way to contain Mario Lemieux.

Lemieux, the National Hockey League’s scoring leader with 15 goals and 31 points in his first 8 games, managed only 2 assists in the final period Thursday night as the Blues held off the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3, at St. Louis.

Rick Meagher, who helped shadow Lemieux, also scored 2 goals for the Blues.

“The key is to keep the puck away from him,” St. Louis Coach Brian Sutter said. “We had a lot of penalties, but we said before the game if we were going to take a penalty, make sure it’s a darned good, hard one.”

Being curtailed by St. Louis was not a new experience for Lemieux. In 3 games against the Blues last season, he collected only 2 of his league-leading 168 points.

But Lemieux had a team-record 8 points when the Penguins defeated the Blues in their first meeting this season.

“It was a different team, a well-rested team out there,” Lemieux said in comparing the two games. “The last game in Pittsburgh, they had played the night before and traveled the day of the game.

Lemieux had 2 shots on goalie Greg Millen in the first period, 3 in the second and 2 in the final period.

The Blues gave much of the credit to Meagher’s defense.

“We went out and checked him,” Meagher said. “The first time, he dominated the whole game. We had a terrible night.”

Boston 6, Quebec 2--Greg Johnston scored his first 2 goals of the season and assisted on another at Boston to propel the Bruins past the Nordiques, who have allowed 33 goals in losing 5 consecutive games.

Johnston, Ray Bourque and Randy Burridge scored in the second period to break a 2-2 tie as the Bruins extended their unbeaten streak to 5 games.

Quebec rookie Joe Sakic, who scored a goal, has at least 1 point in all 11 NHL games in which he has played.

Lyndon Byers of the Bruins and Greg Smyth of the Nordiques drew game misconducts and faced possible fines and suspensions for coming out of the penalty box to continue a fight in the second period.

Ken Linseman and Cam Neely, on a power play, scored goals early in the first period to give Boston a 2-0 lead.

But Sakic got his 9th of the season, and Walt Poddubny followed with his 6th, both on power plays, to tie the game.

Johnston scored his second goal of the game in the third period.

Philadelphia 5, N.Y. Islanders 2--Brian Propp scored power-play goals less than a minute apart in the third period as the Flyers ended a 3-game losing streak by defeating the Islanders at Philadelphia.

The Flyers scored 2 goals within a 2-minute span in the second period to take a 3-2 lead. Ron Sutter, who has 6 goals in 9 games, took a pass from Propp and scored to give Philadelphia the lead at 10:17.

Less than 2 minutes earlier, Scott Mellanby had scored from the top of the left face-off circle to break a 1-1 tie. In between, Pat LaFontaine scored his second goal for the Islanders.