Richter On Track In Rangers’ Victory

Mike Richter turned in one of his better performances in recent weeks as the New York Rangers beat the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 Monday night to sweep the four-game season series.

Richter, rocked for nine goals in two previous losses to Ottawa and Montreal, helped shut down the NHL’s highest-scoring team with 34 saves, including a great performance in the second period when the Rangers were outshot 14-3 yet scored the period’s only goal.

The shutout was Richter’s fourth of the season and 18th of his career. New York last was undefeated against Pittsburgh in a season in 1970-71.

Bruce Driver, Mike Eastwood and Wayne Gretzky scored for the Rangers, who moved within four points of fourth-place Florida in the Eastern Conference standings in their battle for home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

The Rangers and Panthers each have eight games left, none against each other. The sixth-place Penguins are 0-8-1 in their last nine games on the road.

Elsewhere on the ice

Martin Rucinsky had a goal and an assist and Jocelyn Thibault made 19 saves as Montreal snapped a six-game home losing streak, beating Boston 3-1.

Ryan Smyth and Todd Marchant scored in a 12-second span of the first period to lead Edmonton past host San Jose 5-1. The attendance of 17,159 was 283 short of a sellout, the first time the Sharks failed to get a capacity crowd since March 8, 1994. The 118 consecutive sellouts was the longest current streak in the NHL.

Los Angeles’ Vitali Yachmenev and Dimitri Khristich each had a goal and an assist as the Kings tied Vancouver 2-2.

Notable

The NHL is expected to confirm this week that the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and Vancouver Canucks will open the 1997-98 season in Japan. … The Philadelphia Flyers said Eric Lindros will probably miss today’s game against the New Jersey Devils, his second straight after suffering a bruised calf muscle from an illegal hip check in Saturday’s 3-3 tie with the New York Islanders.