NHL Scores & More: Miikka Kiprusoff Wins 300th Career Game, Buffalo Crushes Boston

Miikka Kiprusoff has been a workhorse for the Calgary Flames since arriving in 2003. He has played 70-plus games in six of his seven years in Calgary, including six straight. Thursday, Kiprusoff proved to his former team, the San Jose Sharks, that he is worth much more than the second-round pick they traded him to Calgary by making 34 saves in a 4-3 win, his 300th career victory.

Kiprusoff is the 27th member of the 300-win club, making him the fifth-active player with 300 or more wins (Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Nikolai Khabibulin and Evgeni Nabokov). Kiprusoff and the Flames relinquished a 2-0 lead, but scored two of the final three goals as Kiprusoff kept the Sharks at bay.

Coincidentally, Kiprusoff's first career win was inside HP Pavilion in 2001 with the Sharks, so his career thus far has seemingly come full circle. Kiprusoff is pleased with his accomplishment, but knows that there is more work to be done.

"It's a nice number," Kiprusoff said to reporters after the game. "Right now it's not that big a deal. It's nice, but we have a job to do here. We're fighting for the playoffs, and we need those wins. But, yeah, it's a good number."

As the Detroit Red Wings continue to adjust to the tandem of Joey MacDonald and Ty Conklin, it's clear that one of their goals is to keep as much pressure off their netminder as possible, whomever it might be. With the Edmonton Oilers in town, the home team took advantage of matchups and line changes to implement that strategy. Minimizing the impact of Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle, the Red Wings found that most of the damage (and most of the focus from NHL media) came from #89 in White, who continued his fabulous February.

Despite Detroit surrendering the first power play of the game after a Justin Abdelkader crosscheck brought retribution from Ryan Jones, the Wings held the Oilers off the shot clock through the penalty and much of the first period. By contrast, when Eric Belanger found himself called for a stick infraction, the Wings' power play cashed in thanks to Johan Franzen, who redirected an Ian White shot from in front of the net.

Detroit extended their lead early in the second period when Cory Emmerton found a loose puck in the crease and backhanded it past Nikolai Khabibulin. Despite the speed and aggressive style of the younger team, Detroit's experience and size was on full display as they pushed the Oilers to the perimeter, frequently out muscling them for pucks and punishing attempts to break around the D.

It took a turnover at the top of the Edmonton zone to help give the Oilers a chance to score, with Ryan Jones picking Drew Miller's pocket and sending a long stretch pass to Sam Gagner, who went one on one with MacDonald before firing a vicious backhand to extend his scoring streak.

Despite another late series of Detroit penalties, the Oliers were unable to draw even, but another Justin Abdelkader in the third period would give them another opportunity.

Midway through the man advantage, Magnus Paajarvi cut across the zone and fired a shot through the Detroit PK, and the rebound off MacDonald popped right to the stick of Gagner, who put it into the net on a quick rising shot that bounced in and out almost before it could be noticed.

With the game tied, it was natural to wonder if Gagner's spark might light Edmonton's way past the Wings, but Drew Miller avenged his earlier mistake with a little help from Khabibulin. Moving across the crease after an Abdelkader shot, the Russian netminder lost track of the puck's location and actually skated away from it as he searched, leaving Miller to tap it into an essentially empty net.

Henrik Zetterberg added an insurance goal with a top shelf wrister late in the third period, and Detroit had its18th straight win on home ice, while Gagner and the Oilers had to console themselves with the fact that their young center continued to contribute on a night where the rest of the Edmonton offense found themselves bottled up.

Jason Pominville scored twice and Ryan Miller stopped all 36 shots he face in posting his third shutout of the season as the Buffalo Sabres blasted the Boston Bruins, 6-0, Wednesday night at the First Niagara Center. The game was a chippy affair and featured 90 penalty minutes, 57 of which were assessed against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

It was a bit of an extraction of revenge for Miller, who was injured when he was steam-rolled by Milan Lucic in a late-November Bruins' victory. Miller improved his lifetime record against Boston to 21-6-7 with Wednesday's win.

Buffalo scored a pair of goals in each period, beginning fairly early in the opening frame.

Defenseman Christian Ehrhoff opened the scoring with a blue line snap shot that appeared to deflect off of the stick of Gregory Campbell and found its way over the glove of starter Tuukka Rask and into the far side top corner for his fourth goal of the season at 6:23 of the first period.

Boston appeared to have tied the game at the 8:20 mark when Lucic tipped a shot past Miller in front of the crease. But the Sabres caught a huge break when officials determined that Rich Peverley had interfered with Miller's ability to make the save. Peverley was clearly outside the blue paint during the entire sequence, but the call was consistently bad with so many recent disallowed goals throughout the League.

The turn of good fortune seemed to spur on the home team and left the Bruins in a foul mood the rest of the way.

Pominville notched his first of the evening and 18th of the season a little over six minutes later for a 2-0 lead at the first intermission, and the Sabres never looked back.

Tyler Ennis tallied his fourth of the year early in the middle stanza and Patrick Kaleta added his fifth late in the second before Pominville (second of the night and 19th of the season) and Drew Stafford (his ninth) put the exclamation point on the rout for Buffalo in the third.

Ennis also picked up an assist, while Ville Leino and Andrej Sekera each added a pair of helpers.

The Ennis goal chased Rask at 1:52 of the second, as 24-year-old Finn stopped 16 of the 19 shots in seeing his record fall to 11-7-2. Tim Thomas didn't fare any better, as he made just seven saves on 10 Sabres' shots.

Miller evened his record at 15-15-3. After a very disappointing first four months of the campaign he has posted a 4-0-1 mark in his last five decisions, yielding just five goals in that span and notching shutouts in two of his last three outings.

The recent victories have pulled Buffalo out of the Eastern Conference cellar and have them currently in the 12th spot, nine points behind the slumping Ottawa Senators, who have been in a free fall, losing their last seven (0-6-1).

After posting a scorching 25-4-1 mark in a 30-game stretch to effectively nullify an awful 3-7-0 start to the season, Boston has come back down to earth as of late. The Bruins are just 2-4-0 in their last six games and 5-6-1 over the last 11. Currently holding a six-point margin over second-place toronto, the B's play their next two contests at home against tough competition (Nashville and the Rangers), before embarking on a six-game road trip that includes visits to the lairs of three division rivals (Montreal, Buffalo, Ottawa).

The Sabres and Bruins meet three more times during the year -- February 24 in Buffalo is the next, before playing the final two at TD Garden, including on the last day of the regular season.