Colorado outlasted the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 after another marathon shootout on Friday, improving to 6-0 at home to start the season.
It took eight shootout rounds to decide the outcome of Friday’s game — Avalanche winger Chris Stewart converted before Chicago’s Dustin Byfuglien missed to end the game.
Colorado (12-3-2) were on the receiving end of a 4-3 loss to Chicago (8-5-2) on Oct. 10 in a game that required nine shootout rounds.
Colorado goaltender Craig Anderson finished with 29 saves and Ryan O’Reilly netted two goals to help pull the NHL-leading Avalanche out of an early 2-0 deficit.
“We kept battling out there,” O’Reilly told reporters. “It seems like we like to play from being down by two. It worked out well.”
Chicago got off to a fast start with goals from Byfuglien and Duncan Keith in the first 10 minutes. O’Reilly got his team on the board with a backhand score eight minutes later.
David Jones tied the game at 7:43 into the second and O’Reilly added his second to give Colorado the lead a minute later.
Blackhawks winger Andrew Ladd forced overtime with a wrister at 16:40 in the second. There was no further scoring in the third period or overtime.
Antti Niemi recorded 19 saves for the Hawks, while Anderson got the best of his former team after spent the first few years of his career as a backup in Chicago.
Colorado’s O’Reilly, 18, was a second-round selection in this year’s draft and is tied for second on the team in points.
“What I like about his game — this guy does so many little things that a lot of people probably don’t notice,” Colorado coach Joe Sacco said. “I’m pretty impressed by his ability to think the game out there.”
The Avalanche have made strong turnaround from last year when they finished last in the Western Conference.
DEVILS 2, ISLANDERS 1
At Newark, New Jersey, Yann Danis made 23 saves and stopped four in-close attempts in the third period against his former Islanders teammates to help New Jersey beat New York.
Brian Rolston scored the winner on a power play and defenseman Cory Murphy added his first goal as a Devil. New Jersey has won 10 of its last 12 games.
Frans Nielsen scored for New York and Martin Biron made 29 saves. The Islanders have dropped two straight after winning four in a row.
CAPITALS 4, PANTHERS 1
At Sunrise, Florida, Jose Theodore stopped 28 shots and Brian Pothier had a goal and two assists as Washington — playing without injured star Alex Ovechkin for the second straight game — beat Florida to end a three-game losing streak.
FLYERS 5, SABRES 2
At Buffalo, New York, Daniel Carcillo scored twice and Ray Emery made 28 saves to lead Philadelphia to its fifth straight victory over Buffalo. Chris Pronger had a goal and assist, and James van Riemsdyk and Darroll Powe also scored.
MAPLE LEAFS 3, HURRICANES 2
At Raleigh, North Carolina, Jason Blake scored on a power play with 8:24 left and Jonas Gustavsson made 34 saves in Toronto’s second win in 14 games this season.
John Mitchell and Nikolai Kulemin also scored for Toronto.
Brandon Sutter and Sergei Samsonov scored for Carolina.
STARS 2, CANUCKS 1
At Dallas, Brad Richards scored midway through the second period and Brenden Morrow added a third-period power-play goal as Dallas held off Vancouver despite a 45-save performance by Canucks rookie Cory Schneider.
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