Rangers blanked again

All the New York Rangers have to show for those many zeros in the big salaries they gave to Chris Drury and Scott Gomez during the off-season are a lot more zeros on the scoreboard.

Marc-Andre Fleury turned aside 36 shots in another strong start Tuesday night and the host Pittsburgh Penguins won their third in a row by handing the Rangers their second successive 1-0 loss.

It marked the first time in the 82 seasons of the Original Six franchise that the Rangers absorbed back-to-back 1-0 defeats, according to Elias Sports Bureau. They lost 1-0 in a shootout on Saturday to Boston.

"It's going to come. You've got to believe," said Jaromir Jagr, off to the worst start of his 17-season career with only 1 goal in eight games. "There's nothing else to do; you can't do anything else."

Evgeni Malkin scored on a power play early in the second period to ruin a good night by Henrik Lundqvist, who made a succession of excellent saves while stopping 21 shots. The biggest save came on Jordan Staal's penalty shot less than a minute after Malkin scored.

Thrashers 5, Maple Leafs 4: Ilya Kovalchuk scored the winner in a shootout to give Atlanta a win over host Toronto after the Thrashers gave up the tying to goal in the closing seconds of regulation.

Kovalchuk, Tobias Enstrom, with his first NHL goal, Eric Perrin and Todd White scored in regulation for the Thrashers (2-7), who are 2-1 since general manager Don Waddell took over as coach after firing Bob Hartley.

Mats Sundin, Hal Gill, Nik Antropov and Alex Ponikarovsky scored for Toronto (3-4-3).

Blues 4, Ducks 2: Paul Kariya had a goal and 3 assists, and Brad Boyes scored twice as St. Louis kept Anaheim winless on the road.

Kariya, a key free-agent acquisition, has 9 assists and 11 points for the Blues in his first seven games. Boyes has 6 goals and 2 assists.

Keith Tkachuk also had a goal and two assists for the Blues, who got 14 saves from Manny Legace. He improved to 9-1-1 against Anaheim and hasn't lost to the Ducks since Nov. 16, 1998.