Ed Belfour made 36 saves, and Joe Nieuwendyk scored twice on a shaky Patrick Lalime as the Toronto Maple Leafs advanced to the second round of the playoffs Tuesday by beating the Ottawa Senators 4-1 in Game 7.
"I know Lalime would like to have a couple of those back," Nieuwendyk said. "He played a terrific series, but our goalie played a little bit better. We're awfully excited to be moving on."
Ottawa is 0-4 in series against Toronto and 0-4 in Game 7s overall. The Senators avoided the Maple Leafs in last year's playoffs and reached Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals before losing to Stanley Cup champion New Jersey.
The Maple Leafs, who led 3-0 after first period, will meet the Flyers in the second round -- beginning with Game 1 on Thursday night in Philadelphia.
Toronto enforcer Tie Domi sparked his team by assisting on the first goal. Nieuwendyk added two weak goals on Lalime, who was replaced by backup Martin Prusek to start the second.
"It's not the way you want it to end," Lalime said. "They were both bad goals."
Following Ottawa's double overtime victory in Game 6 on Sunday, Senators owner Eugene Melnyk predicted his team would win Game 7 easily.
Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson also vowed his team would win the series after the Senators lost Game 5. It wasn't to be, largely because of Lalime's poor play. The goalie, who struggled this season, allowed three goals on just 11 shots.
Belfour, who tied an NHL record by recording three shutouts in series, looked spectacular again. Fans chanted "Ed-die, Ed-die!" throughout.
Toronto won the series despite being outshot 238-154, and Maple Leafs coach Pat Quinn called Belfour his best player earlier in the day.
Ottawa's Vaclav Varada cut Toronto's lead to 3-1 just 22 seconds in the second period, but the Senators couldn't close the gap and went 0-for-3 on the power play in the period.
The Senators, who ranked No. 1 in the NHL with the man advantage during the regular season, went 3-for-35 against Toronto.
Bryan McCabe gave the Maple Leafs a 4-1 lead at 7:59 of the third.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed