Mike Knuble scored the decisive goal in the fourth round of the shootout, and also connected in regulation of the Washington Capitals’ 4-3 victory over the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday.
Jose Theodore made 39 saves for the Capitals, increasing his club-record streak to 19 games (17-0-2) without a loss in regulation. With the victory, the Capitals tied the franchise points record of 108 set last season.
Avalanche 4, Kings 3, SO
At Denver, Peter Mueller and Chris Stewart had shootout goals for Colorado after Los Angeles overcame a late two-goal deficit to force overtime.
Los Angeles’ Ryan Smyth had a chance to extend the shootout, but his shot clanged off the goal post to end the game.
Matt Hendricks, Milan Hejduk and Paul Stastny scored first-period goals, leading Los Angeles to pull starting goalie Jonathan Quick in favor of Erik Ersberg.
Alexander Frolov tied it on a power play with one minute, 21 seconds left in regulation, and Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty also scored for Los Angeles.
Red Wings 4, Blues 2
At Detroit, Valtteri Filppula scored with six minutes, 49 seconds left and added an empty-net goal, and Jimmy Howard made 30 saves to help Detroit moved four points ahead of Calgary for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot.
Henrik Zetterberg and Todd Bertuzzi also scored for the Red Wings, 9-2-1 since the Olympic break. Paul Kariya and Jay McClement scored for St Louis.
Sabres 3, Canadiens 2, SO
At Buffalo, New York, Jason Pominville and Thomas Vanek scored in the shootout after Buffalo overcame a two goal deficit in the final 2 minutes of regulation.
Tim Connolly scored a power-play goal with one minute, 59 seconds left in regulation, and Steve Montador tied it with 47.9 seconds left and goalie Ryan Miller off for an extra attacker. Miller made with 26 saves to help the Sabres win their fourth straight game.
Andrei Kostitsyn scored twice and Carey Price stopped 40 shots for Montreal.
Canucks 4, Ducks 1
At Vancouver, British Columbia, Daniel Sedin had a goal and two assists, twin brother Henrik added three assists, and Andrew Raycroft made 30 saves for Vancouver.
Christian Ehrhoff, Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler also scored to help Vancouver bounce back from a loss to last-place Edmonton on Tuesday night.
The win was just the Canucks’ second in five games and kept them five points ahead of Colorado atop the Northwest Division. Henrik Sedin also moved back into the NHL scoring lead with 99 points, one more than Washington’s Alex Ovechkin.
Saku Koivu broke up Raycroft’s shutout bid eight minutes into the third period.
Rangers 5, Islanders 0
At New York, Marian Gaborik had two goals and an assist, and Henrik Lundqvist made 27 saves for his third shutout of the season for New York. The 10th-place Rangers moved within five points of eighth-place Boston, but have only nine games left.
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
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with