Rookie Bobby Ryan scored two goals and Jonas Hiller made 31 saves in his second playoff shutout as the Anaheim Ducks rocked the top-seeded San Jose Sharks again, winning 4-0 on Thursday to take a 3-1 series lead.
Corey Perry had a late goal and an assist and Ryan Getzlaf added two assists for the Ducks, who emphatically moved within one game of becoming the eighth No. 8 seed to win an NHL playoff series since 1994.
Ryan scored twice in a 3:40 span of the second period, giving him four goals in the four-game series. Anaheim then clamped down on Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and the Sharks’ top scorers, making Hiller’s job relatively easy.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Game five is tonight in San Jose, California.FLYERS 3, PENGUINS 0
At Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Arron Asham and Claude Giroux scored the first two goals as Philadelphia avoided elimination by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 on Thursday to force a sixth game in the NHL Eastern Conference first-round series. Martin Biron made 28 saves and Mike Knuble also scored for Philadelphia.
After winning 2-1 in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, the Penguins were in position to finish off the Flyers in game five on home ice for a second successive season.
Game six is scheduled for today in Philadelphia.
DEVILS 1, HURRICANES 0
At Newark, New Jersey, Martin Brodeur tied Patrick Roy’s NHL record for playoff shutouts, making 44 saves to help New Jersey beat Carolina and take a 3-2 series lead.
David Clarkson scored a power-play goal in helping Brodeur post his 23rd postseason shutout and win a great goaltending duel with Cam Ward, who stopped 41 shots.
Brodeur’s gem, which ended with the crowd shouting “Mar-tee! Mar-tee!” came just 48 hours after a 4-3 loss in game four on a controversial goal by Jussi Jokinen with less than a second to play.
Jokinen and Brodeur bumped in front of the crease seconds before the goal and Brodeur felt the officials should have blown the play dead.
Game six is scheduled to be played tomorrow at Carolina.
RED WINGS 6, BLUE JACKETS 5
At Columbus, Ohio, Johan Franzen scored on a power play with 46.6 seconds left to give Detroit a first-round sweep over St Louis.
The call that led to the man advantage was hotly disputed by the Blue Jackets, who were assessed a bench minor for having too many men on the ice.
Marian Hossa had two goals, Nicklas Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom each had a goal and an assist and Daniel Cleary also scored for the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings.
Rick Nash, Kristian Huselius and Kris Russell each had a goal and an assist and R.J. Umberger and Fredrik Modin also scored for Columbus.
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