With the score tied in the third period, Markus Naslund popped out of the penalty box and set up the winning goal as the New York Rangers beat Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals 4-3 in Game 1 of the NHL Eastern Conference series.
Naslund fed Brandon Dubinsky, who made a move that left defenseman Jeff Schultz sprawled on the ice. Dubinsky then beat goalie Jose Theodore inside the near post with 8 minutes, 17 seconds remaining.
Scott Gomez had a goal and two assists, Nik Antropov and Naslund each had a goal and an assist, while Henrik Lundqvist made 32 saves for the seventh-seeded Rangers.
PHOTO: AP
Tomas Fleischmann, Viktor Kozlov and Alexander Semin scored, Ovechkin had a pair of assists and Jose Theodore made 17 saves for Washington.
Game 2 is tomorrow in Washington.
PENGUINS 4, FLYERS 1
PHOTO: AFP
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin each had a goal and an assist as Pittsburgh shut down frustrated Philadelphia’s fleet of scorers.
Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, idle for long stretches in the first two periods as his teammates controlled play at the other end, made 26 saves to help the Penguins win their fourth consecutive conference playoff series opener.
Tyler Kennedy and Mark Eaton also scored for the Penguins, who beat the Flyers in five games last year in the Eastern Conference finals. Simon Gagne scored late in the third period for Philadelphia.
Game 2 is tonight in Pittsburgh.
DEVILS 4, HURRICANES 1
In Newark, New Jersey, Martin Brodeur made 18 saves, while Zach Parise and Jamie Langenbrunner each had a goal and an assist as New Jersey downed Carolina.
Defenseman Mike Mottau scored in the first period, Parise and Patrik Elias added goals in the second period, while Langenbrunner scored in the third.
Martin Brodeur, who set the regular-season record for NHL career wins last month, came within 11 minutes of tying Patrick Roy’s record for career playoff shutouts at 23 before Ray Whitney scored on a rebound.
Game 2 is tonight in New Jersey.
Canucks 2, Blues 1
In Vancouver, Daniel Sedin had a goal and an assist, while Roberto Luongo made 25 saves as Vancouver beat St Louis.
Sami Salo added a power-play goal for the Canucks, 14-1-1 at home since the start of February. Brad Boyes had a power-play goal for St Louis.
Game 2 is tonight in Vancouver.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed