The Anaheim Ducks moved within two points of the NHL lead by beating the Nashville Predators 3-2 after a shootout on Saturday, notching their eighth win in nine games.
Nick Bonino and Corey Perry scored in the shootout for Anaheim, who shot six points clear atop the Pacific Division.
Elsewhere, Toronto goalie Ben Scrivens recorded his first career shutout as the Maple Leafs beat Ottawa, John Tavares had a hat-trick as the New York Islanders cruised past New Jersey, while Montreal notched a third straight win by downing Philadelphia.
Anaheim goaltender Viktor Fasth was strong in the shootout, allowing only one of three Nashville shooters to score. He improved to 8-0-0 this season, with four of those victories coming in shootouts.
Matt Beleskey and Patrick Maroon had goals for the Ducks in regulation. David Legwand and Shea Weber scored for Nashville.
Toronto’s Scrivens stopped 34 shots as the Maple Leafs beat the Ottawa Senators 3-0.
Scrivens was making his second straight start since incumbent James Reimer injured a knee on Monday last week.
The 26-year-old Scrivens has been solid as Reimer’s replacement, stopping 96 of the 100 shots he has faced.
Frazer McLaren, Tyler Bozak and John-Michael Liles scored for Toronto, who earned their fifth win in six games.
New York’s Tavares scored three times and set up another as the Islanders trounced the New Jersey Devils 5-1.
Matt Moulson had a goal and three assists, while Michael Grabner scored with 35 seconds left for the Islanders.
The Devils’ lone goal was Marek Zidlicky’s power-play slap-shot 8 minutes, 47 seconds into the third.
Montreal rookie Brendan Gallagher had a goal and assist before leaving the game with an injury as the Canadiens defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1.
David Desharnais, Tomas Plekanec and Rene Bourque also scored for the Canadiens, who outshot the Flyers 29-19.
Gallagher left four minutes into the third period after being hit into the boards. Daniel Briere scored for Philadelphia.
The Tampa Bay Lightning ended a six-game losing skid by edging their state rivals, the Florida Panthers, 6-5 after overtime, with Benoit Pouliot scoring twice.
The Edmonton Oilers had a team-record 56 shots as they stormed back from three goals down to beat the Colorado Avalanche 6-4, with Magnus Paajarvi scoring the go-ahead goal in the closing minutes.
Phoenix’s Martin Hanzal had two goals and an assist as the Coyotes beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-3.
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