Luc Robitaille scored twice, and John Tripp had a goal and an assist on Thursday as the Los Angeles Kings beat the defending Western Conference champion Anaheim Mighty Ducks 4-2 in the exhibition opener for both teams.
Alexei Smirnov and Chris Armstrong scored power-play goals for the Ducks, who came within one victory of winning the Stanley Cup last June after missing the playoffs the year before.
Rookie Duston Brown also scored for the Kings, who finished 14 points out of a playoff spot last year.
Robitaille, beginning his third stint with the Kings after scoring a career-worst 11 goals with Detroit, scored the winner from his knees as he swatted a rebound of defenseman Tim Gleason's shot past Martin Gerber for a 3-2 lead with 6:56 left in the third period.
Six-time All-Star Sergei Fedorov, who signed a five-year, US$40 million deal with Anaheim as a free agent in July after 13 seasons and three Stanley Cup titles in Detroit, committed a turnover that set up the game's first goal.
Oilers 3, Flames 3
In Calgary, Alberta, Craig Conroy and Chuck Kobasew scored 63 seconds apart in the third period as Calgary rallied from a three-goal deficit to tie Edmonton.
Reunited on a line with Conroy and Dean McAmmond, Jarome Iginla scored a power-play goal for Calgary. Iginla and McAmmond then assisted on Conroy's goal in the third.
Jani Rita, Jason Chimera, and Brad Isbister had goals for Edmonton.
Chimera scored on a breakaway while the Oilers were short-handed at 7:19 of the second period.
Canucks 1, Wild 0
In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Mats Lindgren scored a power-play goal in the second period as Vancouver defeated Minnesota.
The last time the teams met was in the Western Conference semifinals, won by Minnesota in seven games.
On Thursday, the Canucks outshot the Wild 43-12. Late in the second period, Minnesota forward Matt Johnson speared Canucks defenseman Mattias Ohlund and then checked his head into the boards. Johnson was given a slashing major and ejected from the game.
Maple Leafs 9, Djurgarden 2
In Stockholm, Sweden, Mats Sundin, who started playing for Djurgarden in the juniors at age 12, had two goals and an assist as Toronto beat Sweden's most storied hockey team in the NHL Challenge.
Darcy Tucker also scored two goals for Toronto, which beat top Finnish club Jokerit Helsinki 5-3 Tuesday.
Sundin is the leading Swedish-born scorer in NHL history with 1,014 points, including 434 goals.
Returning to the Globe Arena for the first time since the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and playing against Djurgarden for the first time, Sundin, 32, received a standing ovation from many of the fans at the sold-out arena before the game.
Alexander Mogilny also scored for Toronto. Mogilny played his first game at the Globe since winning the 1989 World Championships with the Soviet Union. He defected to the US the day after the final and joined the Buffalo Sabres.
Maxim Kondratiev, Tie Domi, Matt Stajan and Tom Fitzgerald also scored for Toronto.
In other exhibition games: Stars 2, Avalanche 2; Bruins 1, Canadiens 0; Thrashers 2, Lightning 1
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier