Brodeur, Parise carry Devils to SO win

Ryan Miller was all set to put Martin Brodeur on the wrong side of a 1-0 decision.

That is until Mike Mottau got in the way.

The defenseman spoiled Miller's shutout bid late in regulation with his first goal since October, and Zach Parise scored the only goal in the shootout to lift the New Jersey Devils to a 2-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night.

The Devils were back home after a three-game swing to Western Canada and then a four-day layoff and took advantage by winning their third straight. Brodeur and New Jersey wrapped up the road trip with a 1-0 overtime victory at Calgary on Sunday.

Miller seemed poised to return the favor when Mottau changed the plan with 6:23 left in regulation.

"I thought I had him," Miller said of Brodeur. "Both of us were making some saves. He got on a couple of rebounds we probably would want back, but that's the way it goes when you play New Jersey."

The Devils have won three in a row, despite scoring only five goals.

"We've been home for four days. There'd better not be any jet lag," said forward Patrik Elias, who had a game-high eight shots. "We had a pretty hard practice (Thursday). Any way we'd be sluggish, we got it out of our system."

In other games Friday night, it was: Carolina 4, Boston 3; Montreal 5, Florida 1; and San Jose 1, St. Louis 0.

Brodeur made a rolling poke-check stop on Ales Kotalik to start the tiebreaker and then denied Tim Connolly and Thomas Vanek to seal the win.

"It was a pretty good hockey game considering one team came back to play after not playing for four days and not skating," Devils coach Brent Sutter said.

Miller did all he could to protect a 1-0 lead after Kotalik scored 4:36 into the second. It took a play from a pair of defensemen to get the Devils even.

Mottau made a right-to-left pass inside the blue line to defense partner Colin White and then cut down low. White's shot caromed off Miller to Mottau, who scored his first goal in 30 games.

"It's tough, but Mottau made a nice play," Miller said after his 10th straight start and 15th consecutive appearance.

Miller made 34 saves through overtime and stopped Brian Gionta in the shootout.

Buffalo earned a point but dropped its second straight following six consecutive wins. The Sabres had won four in a row on the road.

"When you have a lead with that amount of time left, it's a point but it's not a good one," Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. "We had hoped to lock it down, and we didn't."

Brodeur stopped 26 shots for New Jersey, 14-3-1 in its last 18 games.

Canadiens 5, Panthers 1

At Sunrise, Fla., Guillaume Latendresse, Michael Ryder and Christopher Higgins scored on the first three shots of the game and Montreal beat Florida.

Craig Anderson replaced Tomas Vokoun after the third goal was scored 5:03 in.

Florida had been 5-0-1 against Montreal the past two seasons. Cristobal Huet stopped 40 shots for Montreal.

Sharks 1, Blues 0

At St. Louis, Evgeni Nabokov made 26 saves to help San Jose extend its club-record, road-winning streak to eight games.

The Sharks also set a team record by earning a point in their 11th straight road game (10-0-1). San Jose, which got a goal from Milan Michalek late in the third period, has outscored opponents 32-16 over the stretch.

Nabokov has 39 career NHL shutouts, fourth among active goalies.

Hurricanes 4, Bruins 3

At Raleigh, N.C., Chad LaRose converted a penalty shot, and Eric Staal scored on the power play in the third period to lift host Carolina.

Cam Ward made 18 saves for the Hurricanes, who won consecutive home games for the first time since early November.

Mike Commodore and Rod Brind'Amour had Carolina's other goals. Phil Kessel, P.J. Axelsson and Chuck Kobasew scored for Boston. Kobasew's was a short-handed goal, his second of the season.