NHL ROUNDUP : Lemieux Booed, Penguins Lose, 6-3

Mario Lemieux heard boos in his home rink Tuesday night, which is a pretty good indication of how badly things are going for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Penguins lost to the Philadelphia Flyers in the opener of a home-and-home series with their Patrick Division rivals, 6-3.

The loss was the Penguins’ third straight at home--and some of the fans who remained booed when Lemieux touched the puck in the third period.

Lemieux had two assists to extend his point-scoring streak to a league-high 13 games, but he had only two of Pittsburgh’s 36 shots on goal and wasn’t a factor in the game.

“It does have an effect,” he said of the booing. “If I’m not playing well, they’re allowed to boo, which they did tonight. All I can do is do my best to help the team. If that doesn’t work, try something else.”

The Penguins hadn’t played the Flyers since April, when Philadelphia put an end to their playoff dreams.

And the Flyers picked up where they left off six months earlier, beating Pittsburgh on two goals each by Ilkka Sinisalo and Mark Howe and Mike Bullard’s 300th goal in the NHL.

The Flyers scored four goals on 17 shots in the first period, chasing Pittsburgh goalie Wendell Young, who was starting his ninth consecutive game.

Bullard broke a 1-1 tie with his milestone goal, his 12th of the season, on a power play at 9:44. He took Murray Craven’s pass in the slot, held the puck and placed the shot over Young’s shoulder.

“When you get that much time, you can pick any corner you want,” Bullard said. “Young went down so I went up high.”

Boston 5, St. Louis 1--Cam Neely extended his goal-scoring streak to a league-high eight games and Bobby Carpenter and Ken Linseman each scored twice at St. Louis as the Bruins picke up their eighth victory in their last nine games.

The Bruins raised their record to 10-2-1 against teams outside the Adams Division.

Peter Zezel scored for the Blues, whose six-game home unbeaten streak ended. St. Louis had been 4-0-2 in that stretch.

Carpenter got his seventh and eighth goals for Boston. Neely, who started the game tied with seven players for the league lead in goals, got his 18th of the season at 4:34 of the second period to snap a 1-1 tie. His shot from the left circle, off a pass from Linseman, bounced off the stick of goaltender Vincent Riendeau, over Riendeau’s head and into the net.

Buffalo 4, Hartford 2--Phil Housley and Christian Ruuttu had a goal and an assist apiece for Buffalo at Hartford, Conn., as the Sabres swept a home-and-home series against the Whalers.

Housley, who got his 500th point with an assist in the first period, scored an insurance goal in the second.

New Jersey 3, New York Islanders 2--John MacLean’s goal at 3:30 of overtime gave the Devils their victory at East Rutherford, N.J., and extended the Islanders’ losing streak to five games.