Steve Valiquette outdueled Toronto's Vesa Toskala in a goalie showdown, and Fredrik Sjostrom scored the deciding goal in a shootout to lift the New York Rangers to a 1-0 victory over the Maple Leafs on Friday night. Valiquette allowed a goal in the tiebreaker to Nikolai Kulemin, but earned his third NHL shutout when Jason Blake hit the post on the final shot of the shootout. Nikolai Zherdev opened the shootout with a goal for the Rangers, who bounced back from a 3-1 loss to Buffalo on Wednesday night to improve to 6-1. Toronto is 0-1-2 since opening with a victory over the Stanley Cup champion Detroit. Three of Valiquette's 11 career victories have come against the Maple Leafs, including a shootout victory last season. He skated off as the first star of the game to chants of “Vall-ey! Vall-ey!” from the appreciative Madison Square Garden crowd. Valiquette, getting a rare home start over No. 1 goalie Henrik Lundqvist, made 21 saves - but only nine after the second period. Lundqvist is expected back Saturday night in Detroit. Blue Jackets 5, Predators 3: At Columbus, Ohio, Rick Nash had two goals and rookies Nikita Filatov and Jake Voracek added goals in a Columbus-record span of 8 seconds. The victory ended Nashville's string of 16 consecutive games with a point against Columbus (15-0-1). It was the longest active streak in an NHL regular-season series. Filatov - an 18-year-old playing in his first career NHL game - and Voracek scored 8 seconds apart in the opening period. Jason Chimera also scored for Columbus. In other games it was: Sabres 5, Canucks 2: Oilers 4, Flames 3; Senators 6, Coyotes 3; Ducks 4, Sharks 0; Kings 4, Hurricanes 3, OT. NHL bans Peca Columbus Blue Jackets center Michael Peca was handed a five-game suspension by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on Friday for grabbing a referee by the arm during an October 10 game. The 34-year-old Canadian pleaded his case to Bettman on Thursday in an appeal over the incident, which came in a 5-4 over-time triumph at Dallas. Peca has already served two games of what had been an indefinite suspension but will be unable to return to the lineup until next Friday's game against the New York Rangers.
