Michael Grabner scored the go-ahead goal late in the second period, while Evgeni Nabokov made 26 saves as the New York Islanders took another step toward the playoffs with a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night.
The Islanders won for the seventh time in nine games and moved two points ahead of the idle Rangers into seventh place in the Eastern Conference. Philadelphia (17-19-3) are 12th in the East, five points behind the Rangers and the post-season cutoff.
The Islanders, who won just two of their first 11 home games this season, have four consecutive wins at Nassau Coliseum.
John Tavares and Casey Cizikas — into an empty net — scored 28 seconds apart in the final two minutes to put New York ahead 4-1.
Jakub Voracek gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead in the first period.
PENGUINS 5, HURRICANES 3
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Beau Bennett and Evgeni Malkin scored 13 seconds apart in the third period as Pittsburgh clinched the Atlantic Division title by beating free-falling Carolina.
Brenden Morrow scored his first goal with the Penguins, Robert Bortuzzo added a goal, while Pascal Dupuis had an empty-netter and two assists.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves for Penguins, who were without a handful of regulars — including captain Sidney Crosby, James Neal and Kris Letang — but still handed the Hurricanes their club-record eighth straight home loss.
Joe Corvo and Bobby Sanguinetti scored early goals for the Hurricanes, while Riley Nash put them ahead 3-2 two minutes into the third.
Justin Peters made 28 saves for Carolina, who lost their sixth straight and for the 13th time in 14 games.
BLUE JACKETS 4, SHARKS 0
In Columbus, Ohio, Sergei Bobrovsky earned his fourth NHL shutout — all in his past 15 games — while newcomer Marian Gaborik had a goal and an assist, leading Columbus over San Jose.
Matt Calvert, James Wisniewski and Ryan Johansen also scored for the Blue Jackets, who had lost their previous two games.
Bobrovsky, who did not have a shutout in his first 98 NHL appearances, made 30 saves, including stopping Patrick Marleau’s point-blank wrister in the third period and Dan Boyle’s hard, power-play slap shot in the second.
The Blue Jackets have gotten points in 17 of their past 21 games (12-4-5). They had a four-game home winning streak ended on Sunday night by Minnesota, 3-0. That defeat also snapped a club-record 12-game points streak at home (9-0-3).
LIGHTNING 3, SENATORS 2
In Tampa, Florida, Steven Stamkos scored his 26th goal of the season in the third period as Tampa Bay beat Ottawa.
Stamkos snapped a 2-2 tie with a power-play goal off a pass through the slot by Vincent Lecavalier with 5:04 to play.
Tampa Bay also got goals from Pierre-Cedric Labrie and Lecavalier. Martin St Louis assisted on Lecavalier’s goal for his 900th point. The right wing, the 98th NHL player to reach the milestone, also assisted on Stamkos’ goal.
Daniel Alfredsson and Guillaume Latendresse scored for the Senators, who have lost five in a row. Kyle Turris had two assists. Latendresse tied it at 2-2 from near the crease on a power play.
In other NHL action, it was
‧ Jets 4, Sabres 1
‧ Blues 1, Predators 0
‧ Blackhawks 1, Wild 0
‧ Stars 5, Kings 1
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