The Los Angeles Kings kept up their surge in a tight playoff race in the NHL Western Conference by beating the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 on Wednesday.
Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar scored LA’s goals in the second period while Jonathan Quick made 28 saves.
Darren Helm opened the scoring for the Red Wings in the first.
Detroit has lost four straight and trails Vancouver by nine points for the top spot in the Western Conference.
Lightning 4, Blackhawks 3, SO
In Tampa, Florida, Steven Stamkos scored his NHL-leading 42nd goal as Tampa Bay returned to the winners’ list by downing the Chicago Blackhawks in a shootout.
Martin St Louis had the shootout winner, ending the Lightning’s season-worst four-game losing skid. He also scored in regulation, helping Tampa Bay build a 3-1 lead before the Stanley Cup champions roared back through goals by Patrick Sharp and Jonathan Toews.
In the shootout, St Louis spun in front of the net, set himself and fired the puck past Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford.
Flames 4, Stars 3, SO
In Dallas, Curtis Glencross scored in the third round of the shootout to lift the Calgary Flames over Dallas and into a fourth place tie with Chicago in the Western Conference, a point ahead of the Stars.
Alex Tanguay scored in the second round and Dallas’ Mike Ribeiro countered on a nifty move in the third. Glencross, who scored the deciding goals in Calgary’s previous two games, beat Kari Lehtonen with a snap shot.
Rene Bourque, Tom Kostopoulos and Anton Babchuk scored first-period goals during a 3:15 span to get the Flames off to a fast start.
Jamie Benn, Ribeiro and Tomas Vincour scored for Dallas.
Ducks 5, Rangers 2
In Anaheim, California, Corey Perry and Lubomir Visnovsky each had two goals and an assist as the Anaheim Ducks beat New York.
Visnovsky, who last Friday became the first defenseman in franchise history to get a hat-trick, increased his points total to 54 — tying Detroit’s Nicklas Lidstrom and Phoenix’s Keith Yandle for the NHL lead at the position.
Bobby Ryan added a goal and three assists for the Ducks.
Brandon Dubinsky and Marion Gaborik scored for New York.
Capitals 5, Oilers 0
In Washington, Alex Ovechkin had two goals and an assist to reach 601 career points as the Washington Capitals trounced Edmonton.
Ovechkin passed Michal Pivonka to gain sole possession of third place on the team’s career points chart. Only Peter Bondra (825) and Mike Gartner (789) have more points in a Washington uniform than Ovechkin, now in his sixth NHL season.
In other NHL games, it was:
‧ Blues 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT
‧ Thrashers 3, Hurricanes 2, OT
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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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