Ville Leino scored twice in the third period as the Philadelphia Flyers rallied to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 on Tuesday and stay atop the Eastern Conference.
Philadelphia has led the conference and the Atlantic Division since Jan. 8, but the Penguins had won eight of 10 and had a chance to tie their cross-state rivals at 100 points with a regulation victory.
Goals by Jeff Carter, Scott Hartnell and Claude Giroux and 25 saves by Sergei Bobrovsky prevented that for the Flyers, who won in regulation for the second time in seven games.
Photo: AFP
Alex Kovalev and Tyler Kennedy scored for Pittsburgh, who had won four straight games in a shootout.
BRUINS 3, BLACKHAWKS 0
In Boston, Tim Thomas stopped 32 shots for his ninth shutout of the season, and Mark Recchi moved into 12th on the NHL’s career points list as Boston beat Chicago.
Zdeno Chara and Johnny Boychuk scored two minutes, 20 seconds apart in the second period to break a scoreless tie, and Recchi assisted on the second goal to give him 1,532 points — one more than Paul Coffey. Nathan Horton made it 3-0 in the third.
It was the 25th shutout of Thomas’ career, and his second in three games. He has allowed just two goals in four games to drop his league-leading goals-against average to 1.96.
Corey Crawford made 31 saves for the defending Stanley Cup champions.
MAPLE LEAFS 4, SABRES 3
In Toronto, Mikhail Grabovski scored in the second period and rookie Nazem Kadri added two assists to help Toronto top Buffalo.
Dion Phaneuf, Darryl Boyce and Clarke MacArthur had the other goals for Toronto. MacArthur also added two assists.
Thomas Vanek, Jason Pominville and Rob Niedermayer scored for Buffalo.
LIGHTNING 5, SENATORS 2
In Tampa, Martin St Louis and Dominic Moore both scored two goals to lead Tampa Bay past Ottawa.
Steven Stamkos had an empty-net goal and Simon Gagne had two assists for the Lightning, who have won two in a row after a four-game skid.
Ottawa, last in the Eastern Conference, got goals from Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek.
CANADIENS 3, THRASHERS 1
In Montreal, Roman Hamrlik and Mathieu Darche scored 11 seconds apart in the first period to end Montreal’s three-game goal drought.
Hamrlik scored Montreal’s first goal in 10 days at 12:56 in to end a 199-minute, one-second scoring drought. That goal had not even been announced when Darche made it 2-0 at 13:07.
Carey Price made 27 saves for Montreal, losing a shutout bid 8:35 into the third on a goal by Nik Antropov.
Andrei Kostitsyn scored into an empty net with 1:20 remaining.
In other NHL action, it was:
‧ Canucks 3, Predators 1
‧ Kings 2, Oilers 0
‧ Hurricanes 3, Capitals 2, SO
‧ Blue Jackets 3, Panthers 2
‧ Blues 3, Wild 2, OT
‧ Coyotes 2, Stars 1, SO
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