Jeremy Roenick scored his 507th career goal and added the decisive shootout score as the San Jose Sharks clinched a playoff berth with their 13th victory in 14 games, 4-3 over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night.
Roenick and Curtis Brown each had a goal and an assist, and Evgeni Nabokov made 21 saves in his NHL-leading 42nd victory for San Jose, which has 27 points in its 14 games since Feb. 21 after beating Minnesota for the seventh straight time.
Joe Pavelski put the Sharks ahead with 2:02 left in regulation on an awkwardly angled shot set up by Milan Michalek, who stole a puck behind the Minnesota goal and fed Pavelski for the go-ahead score. But after a penalty and an empty net gave the Wild a 6-on-4 power play, Marian Gaborik slammed home his second man-advantage goal of the night with 28 seconds to play.
Roenick scored the decisive shootout goal in the third round when Niklas Backstrom couldn't hold on to his hard shot. Nabokov stopped Mikko Koivu to end the meeting of division leaders, gleefully kicking the puck after dropping it out of his glove.
Rangers 2, Devils 1
At Newark, New Jersey, Chris Drury scored the tying goal with 4:46 left in regulation, and Nigel Dawes beat Martin Brodeur in the shootout to give New York a victory over New Jersey.
New York tied Ottawa in points in the Eastern Conference playoff race but is still in sixth place on the basis of one fewer win.
The Rangers improved to 6-0 this season against the conference-leading Devils, holding them to five goals in the process and winning three times after regulation.
Dawes had the only goal in the shootout, and Henrik Lundqvist turned aside Jamie Langenbrunner, Brian Gionta and Zach Parise in the tiebreaker after making 17 saves through overtime.
The only blemish was Dainius Zubrus' power-play goal in the first period that looked as though it would be enough for New Jersey to finally top the Rangers.
New Jersey leads Montreal by one point in the race for the top playoff seed in the East.
In other games it was:
* Sabres 7, Lightning 4
* Red Wings 3, Blue Jackets 1
* Hurricanes 5, Thrashers 3
* Blackhawks 5, Capitals 0
* Ducks 2, Stars 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