The Los Angeles Kings produced more Stanley Cup playoffs magic on Sunday with a 4-2 win over the Phoenix Coyotes in their Western Conference Finals opener.
Dustin Brown and Dwight King scored third-period goals to clinch the Game One victory, with the second game of the best-of-seven series set for Tuesday, again in Phoenix.
The win continued a fairytale post-season run for the West’s eighth seeds, who have won nine of 10 playoff games to eliminate top seeds Vancouver in the opening round then swept the second-seeded St Louis Blues in the second.
Unbeaten on the road during the playoffs, the Kings spoiled the NHL-owned Coyotes’ first appearance in a conference finals.
Phoenix netminder Mike Smith kept the home team in the game in the first period where they were outshot 17-4 by the Kings, but went into the intermission tied at 1-1.
However, he could not withstand the relentless Los Angeles barrage and surrendered two more goals. The Kings finished with a total of 47 shots.
“We knew coming in, you watch Phoenix play, they got a really good goaltender,” Brown said. “Part of our thing is getting as many shots on him as we can, make him work, make it hard for him.”
Anze Kopitar gave the Kings an early lead with his fourth of the postseason before Derek Morris answered for the Coyotes.
King restored Los Angeles’ lead midway through the second only to have Mikkel Boedker answer for Phoenix to send the teams into the second intermission deadlocked at 2-2.
Los Angeles captain Brown notched the game winner just over two minutes into the third and King collected his second of the night into an empty net with 48 seconds left.
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