Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals thumped Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins with a 5-2 victory on Sunday that included a dismissive goodbye wave from one superstar to the other.
Ovechkin scored his NHL-leading 43rd goal, and Washington chased goalie Marc-Andre Fleury in the second period in a blowout that should settle any doubt the tide has turned in a series that used to be one-sided in favor of the Penguins.
Alexander Semin, Sergei Fedorov, Shaone Morrisonn and Brooks Laich also scored for Washington. Maxime Talbot and Sergei Gonchar scored for Pittsburgh. The Penguins have lost six of their last seven on the road. They’re 2-1-1 since Dan Bylsma became the interim coach after Michel Therrien’s firing.
PHOTO: AP
MAPLE LEAFS 3, RANGERS 2, OT
At New York, Niklas Hagman scored on a power play 3 minutes into overtime for Toronto, tipping Pavel Kubina’s shot past New York’s Henrik Lundqvist.
Ian White and John Mitchell added goals, Vesa Toskala made 39 saves, and Kubina and Lee Stempniak each had three assists.
Michal Rozsival scored with 39.1 seconds left in regulation to tie it for New York, and Scott Gomez added a goal for the Rangers.
The Rangers honored Hall of Famers Harry Howell and Andy Bathgate before the game, retiring Howell’s No. 3 and Bathgate’s No. 9.
Bathgate will share his No. 9 in the rafters with Adam Graves, a member of the 1994 Stanley Cup championship team whose version of No. 9 was retired this month.
LIGHTNING 4, BRUINS 3
At Tampa, Florida, Vaclav Prospal beat Manny Fernandez on a power play with 1:33 left to lift Tampa Bay past Boston.
Jeff Halpern, Adam Hall and Mark Recchi also scored for Tampa Bay, and Karri Ramo made 40 saves. Phil Kessel, Andrew Ference and Zdeno Chara scored for Boston, coming off a 2-0 loss at Florida on Saturday night.
WILD 2, BLACKHAWKS 1
At Chicago, Josh Harding made 44 saves for Minnesota, and Peter Olvecky snapped a tie with Chicago early in the third period with his first NHL goal.
Dan Fritsche also scored for Minnesota, and the Wild’s NHL-leading penalty kill snuffed all eight Chicago advantages.
Jonathan Toews scored for Chicago. The loss ended the Blackhawks’ winning streak at four.
HURRICANES 5, AVALANCHE 2
At Raleigh, North Carolina, Matt Cullen had his first career hat trick, and Carolina downed Colorado for its third straight win to move within a point of eighth place in the Eastern Conference.
Joni Pitkanen and Ryan Bayda also scored for Carolina.
Darcy Tucker and Wojtek Wolski scored for Colorado.
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