Thomas Vanek scored twice, including the game-winner with four minutes left, to lift the Buffalo Sabres to a 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday.
Maxim Afinogenov also scored in helping the Sabres open a season-high six-game homestand with a win and end a four-game losing streak against their Northeast Division rivals. Backup goalie Martin Biron was sharp in making 28 saves.
Peter Schaefer and Dean McCammond scored for Ottawa, which dropped to 8-3-1 in its past 12.
PHOTO: AP
The Sabres, who twice squandered one-goal leads, won despite playing on consecutive nights after a 4-3 shootout win at Atlanta. And they defeated a well-rested opponent -- the Senators had been off since a 3-2 shootout loss against Toronto on Saturday.
Islanders 2, Flyers 0
At Uniondale, New York, Rick DiPietro made 27 saves in his fifth shutout of the season and the New York finally figured out Philadelphia at home.
DiPietro, 4-0-2 in his past six starts, turned aside some challenging shots but wasn't really tested in posting his 11th NHL shutout. The Islanders stretched their point streak to a season-high eight games and moved within two points of Carolina, the eighth-place team in the Eastern Conference.
Knocking off the Flyers at Nassau Coliseum has turned into as tough a task as any for the Islanders. New York won both matchups in Philadelphia this season -- where the Flyers have won only three times -- but dropped two on home ice, joining Atlanta as the only teams to lose multiple games to them this season.
Viktor Kozlov scored in the first period and Miroslav Satan doubled the lead in the second. That was enough to break the Islanders' four-game, home-losing streak to the Flyers -- 14-4-1-1 in their past 20 trips to Long Island.
Red Wings 4, Coyotes 2
At Detroit, Henrik Zetterberg scored twice, including a go-ahead goal early in the third period that was the 100th of his career, to lead Detroit over Phoenix.
Robert Lang and Pavel Datsyuk also scored for Detroit, which has won five straight to pull within a point of Central Division-leading Nashville. The Red Wings have won 11 in a row at home -- matching their longest winning streak in three years -- and are 20-3-3 overall at Joe Louis Arena.
Owen Nolan and Shane Doan scored for Phoenix, which has lost four of six games.
Detroit's Dominik Hasek made 20 saves.
Curtis Joseph faced a lot more shots and stopped 44 to give the Coyotes a chance against one of his former teams.
Blackhawks 3, Canucks 0
At Vancouver, British Columbia, Patrick Lalime stopped 34 shots in his season debut to earn his first shutout in almost three years and lead Chicago past Vancouver.
Adrian Aucoin scored the winning goal after a series of Canucks miscues late in the second period, and Radim Vrbata and Martin Havlat added empty-netters in the final minute to seal the Blackhawks' fourth win in five games.
It was Chicago's first win in Vancouver since Oct. 4, 2001. The Blackhawks had dropped eight straight here since then, and 11 of 12 overall against the Canucks.
Sharks 3, Ducks 2
Jonathan Cheechoo had two goals at Anaheim, California, and Milan Michalek scored on a power play with 3:46 remaining to lift San Jose past Anaheim.
Ryane Clowe assisted on all three Sharks goals, and Joe Thornton had two assists.
The victory gave the second-place Sharks a split of their two-night, home-and-home series against Pacific Division-leading Anaheim. The Ducks beat them 7-4 the previous night in San Jose.
With Anaheim's Joe DiPenta off for hooking and 3 seconds remaining on the power play, Michalek -- all alone in the slot -- took a pass from Marc-Edouard Vlasic and beat Ilya Bryzgalov with a 40-foot slap shot that trickled between the goalie's pads.
Vesa Toskala made 20 saves for the Sharks, who outshot Anaheim 13-4 in the third period. Bryzgalov stopped 26 shots for Anaheim.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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