Defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky had a goal and assist during a four-goal third period to help the Los Angeles Kings beat the Dallas Stars 6-5 in the NHL on Sunday.
Visnovsky, Nathan Dempsey and Luc Robitaille scored during a 2:12 span on the Kings' first three shots of the third period against a beleaguered Marty Turco to erase a 5-2 deficit. Derek Armstrong completed the scoring by tipping in Visnovsky's one-timer from the right point for his 13th goal after a tripping penalty against Turco.
"We knew it was the last period before the Olympic break, so we had to go all out -- and we did," Robitaille said. "We just knew we had to keep coming. Sooner or later when that happens, you get rewarded with breaks. I just didn't know if it was going to be today. We controlled the puck better, made better dump-ins, and that was the biggest difference."
Jeremy Roenick also scored for the Kings, who have won consecutive games for the first time since Jan. 5.
Pavol Demitra added a goal and three assists for Los Angeles.
Jason Arnott and Sergei Zubov each had a goal and two assists during Dallas' four-goal second period against Mathieu Garon. Bill Guerin and Mathias Tjarnqvist also scored and Morrow had three assists for the Pacific Division-leading Stars, giving him 50 points and eclipsing his previous career high set in 2003-2004.
Blues 5, Oilers 4, SO
At Edmonton, Alberta, Dennis Wideman scored the only goal in the shootout and Lee Stempniak added two goals in regulation to help St. Louis.
Keith Tkachuk and Jay McClement also scored for St. Louis, which improved to 5-1-1 since trading Doug Weight.
Ryan Smyth scored twice for Edmonton, which has lost three straight games. Raffi Torres and Georges Laraque also had goals for the Oilers. Smyth, Ales Hemsky and Fernando Pisani missed in the shootout for the Oilers.
Hurricanes 4, Sabres 3, SO
At Raleigh, Eric Staal scored in the sixth round of the shootout after goaltender Martin Gerber stopped Buffalo's Jason Pominville, helping Carolina.
It was Staal's first goal in his second attempt in the NHL's new tiebreaker, and the Hurricanes improved to 6-1 when the game goes beyond overtime. Niclas Wallin, Erik Cole and Justin Williams scored in regulation for Carolina, which snapped its first two-game losing streak since late December in front of the third sellout in a row.
Perhaps the two-week break for the Olympics comes at an appropriate time for the best team in the Eastern Conference.
Red Wings 6, Avalanche 3
At Detroit, Tomas Holmstrom broke a tie with a power-play goal early in the third period to lead the Red Wings.
Detroit, which won its sixth straight, got a goal and two assists from Pavel Datsyuk and a goal and an assist from Holmstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, and Mathieu Schneider. Jason Williams and Brendan Shanahan also scored and Nicklas Lidstrom had two assists.
Dan Hinote had a goal and an assist for Colorado and Patrice Brisebois and Milan Hejduk got the other goals.
Canucks 3, Wild 2
At Vancouver, British Columbia, Daniel Sedin scored 1:26 into overtime to lift Vancouver over Minnesota.
After Vancouver finished killing off a penalty to identical twin Henrik, the Sedin brothers worked a perfect give-and-go play off the rush, with Daniel passing off then spinning around in the high slot to one-time a return feed from Henrik over Manny Fernandez's outstretched glove.
Ryan Kesler and Bryan Allen also scored, and Alex Auld made 14 saves for the Canucks, who are two points behind Calgary atop the Northwest Division.
Pascal Dupuis scored and Wes Walz added a goal and an assist for the Wild.
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