Rene Bourque scored twice to help the Calgary Flames hold off the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 on Wednesday for a first win over their Northwest Division rivals in five attempts this season.
The win moved the Flames (35-26-9) a point behind the Detroit Red Wings for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Calgary cruised to a 3-0 lead, Eric Nystrom’s goal sandwiched between Bourque’s brace, before the Avs fought back.
PHOTO: AFP
Chris Durno got Colorado (40-24-6) on the board in the second period and Milan Hejduk made it 3-2 with 33 seconds left in the game.
Bourque recognized how crucial his second goal was.
“It was huge,” he told reporters. “To get one there made a big difference in the game. I kind of crept to the side of the net and when [Mark Giordano] shot it, he saw me there and just tried to get it low to the far side, and it was a tap-in.”
Bourque’s winner was his 22nd goal of the season, a career high.
Goaltender Vesa Toskala, acquired in a trade with Anaheim on March 3, had 32 saves in his second start with the Flames.
“Every game is big right now,” Toskala said. “We’re fighting for a playoff spot right now, so every game is like a playoff game. It was a good effort tonight and a huge win.”
Colorado, fifth in the West after finishing dead-last a year ago, came into the contest on a three-game winning streak.
Back in net after a brief break from 23 consecutive starts, goaltender Craig Anderson finished with 31 saves for the Avs, who lost defenseman Ryan Wilson to a head injury during a fight with Jamal Mayers in the first period.
■Devils 5, Penguins 2
REUTERS AND AP, NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
The New Jersey Devils had plenty to celebrate on St Patrick’s Day after they beat Pittsburgh to tie the Penguins for the lead at the top of the Atlantic Division on Wednesday.
It was New Jersey’s sixth win of the season against the defending Stanley Cup champions, sweeping the season series by a lopsided aggregate score of 22-5.
“It’s respect. We know if we don’t play well, we’re not going to succeed against these guys,” Devils netminder Martin Brodeur said about their success against Pittsburgh. “We pay attention to every single detail. It’s always a measuring stick when you play them.”
Wearing retro uniforms with green pants for the first time since the 1991-1992 season, the Devils recovered from Chris Kunitz’s early goal to take a 4-1 lead into the third period on strikes from Dainius Zubrus, Paul Martin, Patrik Elias and Zach Parise.
Pittsburgh’s Ruslan Fedotenko and the Devils’ Rob Niedermayer traded goals in the third period as New Jersey moved into a tie with Pittsburgh on 87 points in the division with a game in hand.
Defenseman Martin, returning to the ice after missing 59 games because of a fractured left forearm, stole an errant pass at mid-ice, raced in and beat goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to make it 2-1 with 1 minute, 42 seconds left in the opening period.
“That was as nervous playing hockey as I’ve been in a long while. I didn’t know what to expect,” said Martin, whose goal was his first of the season. “I just wanted to get through the game, but the opportunity presented itself.”
Elias scored an unassisted, short-handed goal three minutes into the second period and Parise poked in another from in front of the net seven minutes later to make it 4-1.
Brodeur, a year after setting the NHL’s all-time record for wins by a goalie, stopped 24-of-26 shots for his league-leading 39th victory of this season, extending his career record total to 596 wins.
Ducks 4, Blackhawks 2
In Anaheim, California, Saku Koivu scored the go-ahead goal with 5 minutes, 36 seconds left in the third period, Todd Marchant had a short-handed goal and Bobby Ryan notched his 30th and 31st goals to lead Anaheim past Chicago.
The Central Division-leading Blackhawks began a three-game road trip without three-time All-Star defenseman Brian Campbell, who is out with a fractured collar bone and broken rib after he was checked into the boards from behind by NHL scoring leader and two-time most valuable player Alex Ovechkin.
Brent Seabrook and Marian Hossa scored for Chicago, while Corey Crawford made 32 saves after getting called up from Rockford of the AHL.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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