Michael Ryder scored a power-play goal in the first minute of the second period as the Montreal Canadiens hung on for a 2-1 win over Boston on Saturday to open a three-point lead over the Bruins atop the NHL Northeast Division.
Alex Galchenyuk also scored and Carey Price made 26 saves for the Canadiens, who have won three of four against the Bruins this season.
In other key games, Chicago took the overall league lead with a win over Nashville, defending champs Los Angeles kept moving forward in the Western Conference playoff picture with a defeat of Edmonton, Toronto inflicted a sixth-straight defeat on New Jersey, and Vancouver put five past Calgary.
Photo: Reuters
Montreal clung on for victory despite being a defenseman down from the midway point of the first period when Alexei Emelin appeared to sustain a left-knee injury in a thunderous collision while taking a run at big Bruins forward Milan Lucic.
Daniel Paille scored for Boston, who had a three-game winning streak snapped.
Chicago’s Bryan Bickell scored the sole goal in the first period as the Blackhawks beat the Nashville Predators 1-0, with goalie Ray Emery making 20 saves.
Chicago beat Nashville for the third time this season — including twice in six days. The teams were due to meet again yesterday in Chicago.
Los Angeles’ Jeff Carter had a goal and an assist, while Jonathan Quick made 23 saves as the Kings defeated the Edmonton Oilers 4-1.
Mike Richards and Slava Voynov also scored for the defending Stanley Cup champions, who have climbed back into fourth place in the West.
Carter scored his 22nd goal and Voynov got his first goal in 17 games, with both scores coming on Los Angeles’ long-struggling power play. Drew Doughty added an empty-netter, just his second goal of the season.
Magnus Paajarvi scored for the Oilers.
Toronto rookie Leo Komarov and Tyler Bozak scored as the Maple Leafs edged the New Jersey Devils 2-1.
The Maple Leafs are fifth in the East, seven points ahead of the 10th-placed Devils, who are three points behind the eighth-placed New York Islanders and the postseason cutoff.
David Clarkson deprived Reimer of his second shutout in three games with a goal with 8:23 left, but the Devils fell to 0-3-3 in their past six games.
Vancouver’s top line combined for eight points as the Canucks recorded a 5-2 win over the Calgary Flames.
Henrik Sedin scored an empty-net goal and earned career NHL assists No. 600 and 601, Daniel Sedin added three assists, and Alex Burrows scored and had an assist for Vancouver, while goalie Cory Schneider made 36 saves.
Dan Hamhuis, Dale Weise and Alex Edler also had goals for the Canucks.
Dennis Wideman and Alex Tanguay scored for Calgary (13-20-4), who have lost five straight overall and 13 consecutive on the road.
Winnipeg scored four second-period goals in less than seven minutes, and Ondrej Pavelec made 30 saves as the Jets beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 to snap a five-game losing skid.
New York’s Henrik Lundqvist made a season-high 48 saves as the New York Rangers won 4-1 over Carolina to give the Hurricanes a club-record-tying seventh-straight home loss.
The New York Islanders downed the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2, with Matt Martin scoring the go-ahead goal with less than seven minutes left.
Washington’s Alex Ovechkin recorded his 12th career hat-trick and added an assist as the surging Capitals survived a late rally to beat the Florida Panthers 4-3.
Phoenix’s Mike Smith stopped 24 shots in his return to the Coyotes lineup and earned his fifth shutout of the season in the 4-0 win over the Colorado Avalanche.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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