Ben Smith tapped in a rebound with 3.7 seconds left on a wild scrum to give the Chicago Blackhawks a 4-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets in their NHL game on Friday night.
With time running out, Duncan Keith threw the puck on net and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky blocked it with his arm, but it popped out of his reach. While he and two teammates scrambled to get to the loose puck, Smith pushed it into the net.
Jeremy Morin, Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa also had goals for Chicago, while Keith had three assists and Antti Raanta made 24 saves.
Bobrovsky had 34 saves, while Derek MacKenzie, Ryan Johansen and Artem Anisimov scored for Columbus, who are fighting for the playoffs and in dire need of points.
With 85 points to start the night, the Blue Jackets held a tenuous grasp of the second wild-card spot in the East, a point behind Detroit, who held the first wild card.
Stanley Cup champions Chicago have already locked up their sixth straight playoff appearance.
Midway through the third with the game tied at three-all, Raanta made the stop of the match when Matt Calvert intercepted a pass and zoomed in all alone, only to have his shot deflected, leaving the game tied.
Bobrovsky then stopped a blast by Bryan Bickell and smothered Morin’s shot with his knees in the slot with less than 5 minutes remaining, before the wild finish sealed the win for Chicago.
In Anaheim, Mike Fisher had two goals and an assist, while Colin Wilson also scored twice to help the Nashville Predators beat the Anaheim Ducks 5-2.
Patric Hornqvist also scored and had two assists, while Matt Cullen added two more as Nashville ended a six-game losing streak to the Ducks and preserved their playoff chances with five games remaining. Hornqvist has 13 points (six goals and seven assists) from his past 10 games.
Pekka Rinne stopped 27 shots for the Predators, who led 4-1 in the first period, while Kyle Palmieri and Daniel Winnik scored for Anaheim.
In Montreal, Max Pacioretty had a hat-trick as the Montreal Canadiens scored seven straight goals to rally to a 7-4 win over the Senators.
Andrei Markov, Mike Weaver, Lars Eller and David Desharnais also scored for Montreal, who trailed 3-0 less than 6 minutes into the game, which saw Peter Budaj stop 39 shots for his 10th win of the season.
Zack Smith had two goals for Ottawa, while Ales Hemsky and Mika Zibanejad also scored, and Craig Anderson stopped 16 of 23 shots.
In Newark, Ryan Carter’s third period goal gave the New Jersey Devils a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals to keep the home team’s slim hope of reaching the playoffs alive.
The Capitals and Devils each have five games left, but trail Detroit and Columbus in the race for the final two playoff berths. New Jersey are three points behind Columbus and Washington four adrift.
In Arizona, Sam Gagner scored with 40.4 seconds left to tie the game, beofre scoring the only goal in a four-round shootout to lift the Edmonton Oilers to an improbable 3-2 win over the Phoenix Coyotes.
The loss gave the Coyotes a one-point lead over the Dallas Stars for the final Western Conference wild-card spot, but Dallas have two games in hand on Phoenix.
Elsewhere on Friday, Daniel Alfredsson had a goal and an assist as the Detroit Red Wings beat the Buffalo Sabres 3-2, as Mike Cammalleri scored the tiebreaker in the second period to lead the Calgary Flames to a 2-1 win over the Florida Panthers.
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