Philadelphia — Jiri Dopita scored four goals a first this season in the NHL to tie a team record as the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Atlanta Thrashers 7-4 Tuesday night to take over first place in the Atlantic Division.
Dopita, who also had an assist, is playing in his first NHL season after leading his team to five league championships in the Czech Republic. He had scored only two goals in his previous 25 games with the Flyers. The four goals tied a franchise record reached 14 times, most recently by John LeClair in 1998.
Ilya Kovalchuk scored two goals for the Thrashers.
Bruins 3, Penguins 2
Pittsburgh Boston's top line of Sergei Samsonov, Joe Thornton and Glen Murray each scored a goal and the Bruins beat Pittsburgh for their eighth victory in 10 games.
Samsonov, who had a goal and two assists, scored the game-winner at 8:14 of the third period in a game that began as a shootout but settled into a defensive struggle.
Maple Leafs 4, Predators 3
Toronto Mats Sundin scored twice as Toronto rallied past Nashville.
Sundin tied the game at 3 with his 24th goal of the season at 9:08 of the third, and gave Toronto the win with his 25th at 13:49.
Tie Domi and Dmitry Yushkevich also scored for the Maple Leafs, who beat the Predators for the first time since their inception in 1998-89.
Flames 5, Islanders 2
Uniondale, N.Y. Jarome Iginla had a goal and two assists and goalie Roman Turek stopped 35 shots as Calgary beat New York.
Chris Clark added a goal and an assist, and Clarke Wilm, Dean McAmmond and rookie defenseman Steve Montador also scored for Calgary, which has won eight straight meetings between the two teams.
Sabres 3, Canucks 2
Buffalo, N.Y. Vaclav Varada scored twice as Buffalo won consecutive games for the first time in more than a month, beating Vancouver.
Tim Connolly scored the eventual game-winner and goaltender Martin Biron stopped 27 shots to record his first home victory since Nov. 23 and second win in his last 11 appearances.
Stars 2, Lightning 1
Tampa, Fla. Marty Turco won his seventh straight decision, and Joe Nieuwendyk and Mike Modano scored 33 seconds apart early in the third period as Dallas beat Tampa Bay.
Turco made 34 saves and is 7-0-0 with one no decision in his past eight starts. He lost his shutout bid when Dave Andreychuk scored with 46.2 seconds left in the game.
Dallas is 10-2-1 in its past 13 road games.
Wild 4, Canadiens 2
St. Paul, Minn. Wes Walz had two goals, one short-handed, as Minnesota beat Montreal in coach Jacques Lemaire's 600th game as an NHL coach.
The Canadiens climbed within 3-2 in the third period when Shaun Van Allen took a pass from Joe Juneau from the bottom of the left circle and spun around to shoot it past Manny Fernandez at 2:16.
Minnesota's Sergei Zholtok padded the lead at 8:50 of the third, though, and Antti Laaksonen also scored for the Wild.
Andrei Markov had the other Montreal goal.
Blues 6, Sharks 2
San Jose, Calif. Dallas Drake scored twice in the first period and the St. Louis Blues went on to defeat the Sharks.
Keith Tkachuk, Scott Young, Pavol Demitra and Chris Pronger also scored for the Blues, who extended their winning streak to three games by dominating every phase of the contest.
Owen Nolan and Scott Thornton scored for the Sharks.
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