Dennis Seidenberg and Patrice Bergeron scored second-period goals and Tim Thomas made 33 saves as the Boston Bruins clinched the Northeast Division title with a 2-1 victory over the New York Rangers on Sunday night.
Boston also prevented the Rangers from winning the Atlantic Division and securing the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. New York need only one point in their final three games to finish first.
Marian Gaborik scored his 40th goal of the season early in the first period, but the Rangers couldn’t muster much else against the defending Stanley Cup champions, who also locked up the No. 2 seed.
Photo: AFP
FLYERS 6, PENGUINS 4
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jakub Voracek scored twice in the third period to break open a tight game and lift Philadelphia past Pittsburgh.
Wayne Simmonds, Claude Giroux, Max Talbot and Marc-Andre Bourdon also scored for Philadelphia, while Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 43 shots to help the Flyers pull within a point of the Penguins for the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Photo: AFP
Steve Sullivan scored twice for Pittsburgh and James Neal added his 39th of the season, but the Penguins couldn’t hold an early two-goal lead. Marc-Andre Fleury made 20 saves.
The game served as a preview of what could be a heated first-round playoff matchup, as there was a third-period brawl that even had the teams’ coaches yelling at each other.
SENATORS 5, ISLANDERS 1
In Uniondale, New York, Kyle Turris scored twice and had two assists, while Milan Michalek added his team-leading 35th goal as Ottawa beat New York to clinch a playoff spot.
The Senators won their fourth straight game to move four points behind idle New Jersey for sixth place in the Eastern Conference. Both teams have three games left before the regular season ends on Saturday. The Senators, with 92 points, are four ahead of eighth-placed Washington.
Nick Foligno and Sergei Gonchar also scored for Ottawa. Craig Anderson made 29 saves, allowing only Mark Streit’s goal in the first period.
OILERS 2, DUCKS 1
In Anaheim, California, Teemu Hartikainen gave Edmonton an early lead with his first two goals of the season and Devan Dubnyk made 32 saves as the Oilers beat Anaheim in the Ducks’ final home game of the season.
Teemu Selanne scored for the Ducks and Jonas Hiller stopped 13 shots. Hiller, who has set franchise records with 70 starts and 71 appearances, finished his home slate 19-16-2.
Anaheim captain Ryan Getzlaf had a goal disallowed that would have tied it. Television replays confirmed that his slap shot from the top of the right circle got past Dubnyk a split-second after time expired in the second period.
WILD 5, BLACKHAWKS 4, SO
In Chicago, Devin Setoguchi and Erik Christensen scored in a shootout to help Minnesota beat Chicago for their third straight victory.
Setoguchi had a goal and two assists in regulation, then sealed the victory in the third round of the shootout with a quick shot that beat Ray Emery.
Patrick Kane had the lone Chicago goal in the shootout against Josh Harding. Kane scored his second goal in regulation, during a power play with 2:45 left in the third period, to tie it at 4.
Dany Heatley, Kyle Brodziak and defenseman Clayton Stoner also scored for Minnesota, who won in a shootout for the second straight night. Patrick Sharp and Viktor Stalberg scored for Chicago.
RED WINGS 2, PANTHERS 1, SO
In Detroit, Michigan, Jiri Hudler scored with 14:30 remaining in the third period and again in a shootout to help Detroit beat Florida.
Pavel Datsyuk also scored in the shootout for the Red Wings, who held on to win when Kris Versteeg missed high on Florida’s last attempt.
Tomas Fleischmann scored for the Panthers in the first period.
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