Staal brothers star as 'Canes thwart Leafs

CAROLINA'S Staal brothers played key roles as the Hurricanes beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1 on Thursday in Raleigh to increase their lead in the NHL Southeast Division to four points.

Jordan Staal scored and brother Eric had an assist to extend his point streak to a league-best 11 games.

Elsewhere, Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne completed back-to-back shutouts in the win over Phoenix, Montreal beat Florida in overtime, and the New York Islanders ended a run of five straight defeats by beating the crosstown New York Rangers in a shootout.

Carolina's Joe Corvo had a goal and an assist while Jussi Jokinen also scored for the Hurricanes, while Nazem Kadri scored for Toronto, which had won its previous four games.

Nashville's Rinne extended his shutout streak to just shy of 138 minutes as the Predators beat the Phoenix Coyotes 3-0.

Gabriel Bourque, Nick Spaling and Mike Fisher scored for the Predators.

Montreal's Rene Borque netted 2:10 into overtime, providing the sole goal in the Canadiens' 1-0 win over the Florida Panthers.

Bourque's winner came on a tip-in just in front of the net. The puck drifted in front of the crease and Shawn Matthias couldn't clear it for Florida. Instead, it bounced off goalie Jose Theodore's pad and Bourque poked it in.

The Islanders' John Tavares scored one of his team's three-second period goals and then netted the winner in a shootout as they beat the Rangers 4-3.

Tavares followed Frans Nielsen's goal in the opening round of the tiebreaker with one of his own, and goalie Evgeni Nabokov stopped two shots to give the Islanders the win.

"We responded in the second and we made some changes with our lines and I liked the way we responded and played well," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said.

Colorado's Milan Hejduk and Matt Duchene scored in the shootout to lift the Avalanche to a 4-3 win at the Minnesota Wild, while Washington's Eric Fehr scored twice as the Capitals beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3.

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