Los Angeles continued their remarkable run of crunch wins in this postseason by beating Anaheim 6-2 in Friday’s decisive Game 7, advancing to the NHL Western Conference finals for the third straight year.
The Kings improved to a 6-0 record in games where a loss meant elimination from the playoffs.
Justin Williams, Jeff Carter and Mike Richards scored in a first period which laid the foundation for a comfortable win over their neighbors and main rivals.
Anze Kopitar, Marian Gaborik and Tanner Pearson also scored, and Jonathan Quick made 25 saves for the Kings, who came from 3-0 down in the first round of the playoffs against San Jose and backed that up by winning the final two games of this series.
Next up is a West decider against reigning Stanley Cup champions Chicago, with the Blackhawks to host the opener today.
The Kings took charge in the first period and led 5-0 late in the second, never allowing the Ducks to get close on their own ice. They got stellar performances from their best big-game players. Quick improved to 3-0 in Game 7s in his career, while Williams started Los Angeles’ first-period onslaught with his sixth goal in six career trips to Game 7.
Gaborik scored six goals in the series’ four games in Anaheim, giving him an NHL-best nine goals in his first postseason with the Kings. Gaborik, Williams and Richards are unbeaten in six career trips to Game 7, while Carter improved to 4-0.
Anaheim’s 20-year-old goaltender John Gibson yielded four goals from just 18 shots before getting replaced early in the second period by Jonas Hiller, the dependable veteran who was twice benched by coach Bruce Boudreau in the season’s final weeks.
Gibson did not deserve all the blame behind a team that made innumerable mistakes in their biggest game of the season.
Corey Perry scored early in the third period, but missed a penalty shot and got denied on a second-period breakaway. Kyle Palmieri scored late in the second period.
The result was a bitter farewell for Teemu Selanne, whose 21-season NHL career began in Winnipeg in 1992 and included parts of 15 seasons in Anaheim. The Finnish Flash scored 684 regular-season goals, but had just two goals in 12 playoff games this spring.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB