Petr Sykora scored in triple overtime and Marc-Andre Fleury made 55 saves as the Pittsburgh Penguins kept their playoff hopes alive by beating Detroit 4-3 at Joe Louis Arena on Monday.
With the marathon victory the underdog Penguins staved off elimination and forced game six in the best of seven Stanley Cup finals today at the Igloo in Pittsburgh.
“I got a great pass and put it in,” said Sykora, who ended the fifth longest game in Stanley Cup finals history. “We have a great team right now.”
Forward Sykora scored on the power play 9:57 through the third overtime period, firing a wrist shot past Detroit goalie Chris Osgood.
Pittsburgh was handed a four-minute man advantage after Detroit’s Jiri Hudler was called for highsticking Penguins Rob Scuderi with 9:21 gone in the third overtime of the contest which lasted nearly four and a half hours.
Maxime Talbot, Marian Hossa and Adam Hall also scored for Pittsburgh which now trails Detroit in the series three games to two.
“We are going back home and we have nothing to lose,” Sykora said. “We know what we have to do and we are going to bring it back here.”
Game seven would be on Saturday in Detroit.
The Penguins blew a 2-0 first period lead, allowing Detroit to score three unanswered goals in the second and third.
But the one-goal lead wouldn’t hold up in the see-saw contest as forward Talbot scored with just 34 seconds left in the third to send the game into sudden-death overtime.
Darren Helm, Pavel Datsyuk and Brian Rafalski scored for Detroit which is seeking its 11th National Hockey League championship in franchise history.
Pittsburgh had to play almost all of the overtime without their top scoring defenseman Sergei Gonchar, who was injured while falling heavily into the end boards trying to break up a Detroit rush in the second period of regulation.
Gonchar returned for the game-ending power play and assisted on Sykora’s winner.
It was a bitter loss for Detroit who controlled most of the play throughout the five-and-half periods, outshooting the Penguins 58-32 overall.
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