The Chicago Blackhawks equaled their franchise record with an eighth straight win on Friday, beating the Philadelphia Flyers 5-1.
Patrick Sharp scored his team-leading 19th goal of the season for Chicago, which also won eight straight in 1971 and 1981.
The winning run has moved the Blackhawks within five points of defending champion Detroit in the Central Division while the Flyers missed a chance to move share the top of the Atlantic Division.
PHOTO: AP
In front of a franchise regular-season record crowd of 22,712, the Blackhawks took a 2-0 lead in the first 3 minutes.
After outshooting Philadelphia 14-1 in the second period, Chicago broke the game open early in the third with three goals in the first six minutes.
OILERS 3, CANUCKS 2
In Vancouver, Shawn Horcoff and Sheldon Souray both scored on 5-on-3 power plays as Edmonton prevailed in a narrow win over Vancouver.
Dwayne Roloson made 26 saves for Edmonton for the Oilers, who took a 3-0 lead in the second period and held on for the win.
PREDATORS 3, RED WINGS 2
In Nashville, Tennessee, defenseman Kevin Klein scored a power-play goal and Vern Fiddler added a goal late in the second period as Nashville edged Detroit.
Defenseman Greg Zanon also scored and Dan Ellis stopped 38 shots for the Predators.
CAPITALS 3, SABRES 2
In Washington, Alex Ovechkin, Viktor Kozlov and Boyd Gordon scored goals as Washington pipped Buffalo.
Jose Theodore made 22 saves for the Capitals, who improved to an Eastern Conference-best 14-1-1 at home.
PENGUINS 1, DEVILS 0
In Newark, New Jersey, Marc-Andre Fleury made 37 saves for Pittsburgh’s first shutout of the season, downing New Jersey.
Ruslan Fedotenko scored the sole goal in the second period. Fleury had his 12th career shutout.
In other games, it was:
• Coyotes 2, Kings 1
• Hurricanes 5, Thrashers 4
• Lightning 4, Panthers 3, SO
• Islanders 4, Maple Leafs 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