Martin Brodeur stopped 26 shots for his NHL-best eighth shutout of the season and the New Jersey Devils opened a 10-point lead in the Atlantic Division with a 1-0 win over the New York Rangers on Tuesday.
Defenseman Brad Lukowich scored in the first period, ending a 20-game goal drought with his second of the season. The surging Devils won for the ninth time in 11 games (9-1-1) and moved 10 points in front of the second-place Rangers.
Penguins 5, Islanders 2
PHOTO: AP
At Pittsburgh, Sidney Crosby and Erik Christensen each scored two goals to lead Pittsburgh over the New York Islanders.
Christensen added an assist, and Michel Ouellet had a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh, who moved into third place in the Atlantic Division with their second straight win.
Richard Park and Arron Asham scored for New York.
PHOTO: AP
Thrashers 6, Kings 2
At Atlanta, Marian Hossa picked up his second hat trick of the season and Atlanta defeated Los Angeles, ruining the first start for Kings goalie Yutaka Fukufuji.
Fukufuji, the first Japanese-born player in the NHL, was lifted less than two minutes into the second period after Jim Slater's deflection gave the Thrashers a 3-1 lead. He stopped only six of nine shots.
Blue Jackets 5, Blackhawks 4, OT
At Chicago, Jason Chimera scored at 2:31 of overtime to give Columbus a win over Chicago that snapped the Blue Jackets' four-game losing streak.
Chimera beat Nikolai Khabibulin between the legs with a shot from the right circle to complete a 2-on-1 break.
Sergei Fedorov, Rostislav Klesla, Joe Motzko and Fredrik Modin scored in regulation for the Blue Jackets.
Motzko's goal was his first in the NHL.
Maple Leafs 4, Lightning 2
At Tampa, Florida, Alex Steen snapped a third-period tie with a power-play goal and Andrew Raycroft made 21 saves to help Toronto beat Tampa Bay.
Rebounding from a poor performance in a 6-1 loss to Vancouver last Saturday, the Maple Leafs also got goals from Nik Antropov, Alexei Ponikarovsky and John Pohl, the latter wiping out a 2-1 deficit late in the second period.
Canucks 4, Canadiens 0
At Montreal, Roberto Luongo made 30 saves to post his third shutout of the season and Vancouver won its fifth consecutive road game, beating the slumping Montreal.
Josh Green, Lukas Krajicek, Ryan Kesler and Jan Bulis scored for the surging Canucks, who have won nine of 10 to move past Calgary into first place in the Northwest Division.
Senators 5, Capitals 2
At Ottawa, Mike Comrie scored twice and Daniel Alfredsson had a short-handed goal and an assist as Ottawa extended its winning streak to a season-high five games with a victory over Washington.
Comrie, acquired in a Jan. 3 trade with Phoenix, scored a power-play goal 19:33 into the first. He added his second of the game -- his fourth in four games -- midway through the second to increase Ottawa's lead to three.
Oilers 2, Wild 1
At St. Paul, Minnesota, Joffrey Lupul and Marc-Andre Bergeron each scored a power-play goal, and Edmonton held off Minnesota.
The Oilers, who have the NHL's best penalty-kill unit on the road, held Minnesota scoreless in six power plays to snap a seven-game losing streak against Northwest Division opponents.
Hurricanes 3, Panthers 2, OT
At Sunrise, Florida, Justin Williams scored a power-play goal at 1:47 of overtime to give Carolina a victory over Florida.
With Mike Van Ryn in the penalty box for holding, Williams beat Ed Belfour with a wrist shot over his right shoulder. Scott Walker and Erik Cole also scored for Carolina, which improved to 17-0 this season when leading after two periods.
Blues 6, Ducks 2
At Anaheim, California, Eric Brewer had a goal and two assists, Radek Dvorak added three assists and the steadily improving St. Louis breezed past NHL-leading Anaheim.
Petr Cajanek had a goal and an assist for the Blues, who got a short-handed goal from Jamal Mayers to cap a four-goal second period. It was the first short-handed goal given up this season by the Ducks, who were the only team that hadn't allowed one.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB