Philadelphia finally put a stop to the surging Pittsburgh Penguins with a 3-2 triumph on Tuesday that lifted the Flyers into first place in the Eastern Conference.
Scott Hartnell scored the go-ahead goal at 9:54 in the third period to help the Flyers (20-7-5) snap the Penguins’ 12-game winning streak and move one point ahead of Pittsburgh in the Atlantic Division and the East.
Hartnell redirected a shot from team mate Chris Pronger for the power-play game-winner, Philadelphia’s fifth victory in six games.
“This was for first place — it was a big game for us,” Flyers goaltender Brian Boucher told reporters after recording 21 saves. “We know they’re a team that’s been on a roll. These are games that are not hard to get up for. This is what you play hockey for.”
Forward Evgeni Malkin scored twice for Pittsburgh on his return from a knee injury that sidelined him for four games as the Penguins twice tied the contest, his second effort coming at 3:18 in the third period.
Malkin, though, was in the penalty box for interfering when his team surrendered the deciding goal.
Claude Giroux gave Philadelphia a 1-0 lead in the first period while Nikolay Zherdev put the home team ahead 2-1 with a snap shot at 12:28 in the second.
Red-hot Sidney Crosby, the NHL’s goals and points leader, recorded two assists to extend his point-scoring streak to a joint career-best 19 games, equaling the sizzling stretch he produced in 2007.
Crosby has 20 goals and 18 assists during his current run but could not prevent the Penguins (21-9-2) from losing for the first time since Nov. 15.
“You never like losing and just because we won however many we won doesn’t change that feeling, and I don’t think it ever will,” Crosby said. “You go out there and you work hard and you have an objective in mind to win a game and you don’t — so no, it’s not a good feeling.”
Pittsburgh fell five games short of the NHL-record, 17-game winning streak it established during the 1993-94 season.
In their divisional clash, the Penguins were outshot 37-23 by the Flyers and needed 34 saves from goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to stay in the contest.
MAPLE LEAFS 4, OILERS 1
In Edmonton, Toronto started their Western Canada road trip with a victory over Edmonton.
Kris Versteeg had a goal and an assist, while Dion Phaneuf, Mikhail Grabovski and Phil Kessel also scored for the Leafs.
Jordan Eberle scored for the Oilers, who remain in last place in the Western Conference.
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
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