Ben Smith assisted on the Blackhawks’ first goal and scored their second to lead Chicago to their eighth consecutive victory, 3-2 over the Boston Bruins on Thursday night.
The Blackhawks lost captain and No. 2 scorer Jonathan Toews in the second period when Dennis Seidenberg hit him from behind and sent him face-first into the boards.
Scott Darling made 32 saves for the Blackhawks, who have won 11 of 12 and lost just twice in the past month.
Tuukka Rask stopped 18 shots for Boston. The Bruins have lost four of five and six out of eight. Reilly Smith and Torey Klug scored for Boston.
The Bruins were boosted by the return of captain Zdeno Chara, who missed seven weeks with a torn ligament in his left knee.
Klas Dahlbeck and Patrick Kane also scored for Chicago, while Marcus Kruger had a pair of assists as the Blackhawks opened a 3-0 lead midway through the second period.
FLYERS 4, DEVILS 1
In Philadelphia, Matt Read and Sean Couturier each had a goal and an assist to lead Philadelphia over New Jersey.
Wayne Simmonds added a power-play goal for the Flyers, while Jakub Voracek scored an empty-netter late in the third period to seal the win.
Martin Havlat scored for the Devils.
The Flyers opened a four-game homestand with a needed win after dropping four of five on the road. Three of the four losses were by one goal.
The Devils have lost two straight.
With Steve Mason 0-5 against the Devils, Ray Emery got the start for the Flyers. Emery was 0-4 with a 4.12 GAA in his last four starts, but he was hardly tested against the Devils and earned his fifth win.
SABRES 4, FLAMES 3
In Buffalo, New York, Matt Moulson scored twice and Jhonas Enroth stopped 42 shots as Buffalo beat Calgary.
Zemgus Girgensons and Marcus Foligno also scored for the Sabres, while Tyler Ennis had three assists. Moulson’s second of the game, on a pass from Ennis with 7 minutes, 29 seconds to go, broke the 3-all tie and gave the Sabres their second straight win.
Mark Giordano, Sean Monahan and David Jones scored for Calgary, who outshot Buffalo 45-19.
The Sabres have won four straight at home and are 4-4 against the Pacific Division.
BLUE JACKETS 3, CAPITALS 2, OT
In Washington, Nick Foligno scored a power-play goal at 4:41 of overtime, while Sergei Bobrovsky had 39 saves as Columbus topped Washington for their fifth straight victory.
With Jason Chimera in the penalty box for interference, Foligno put a slap-shot from the right circle past goalie Braden Holtby to give the Blue Jackets their only lead of the game.
It was Foligno’s second goal of the game and team-high 13th of the season. Kevin Connauton also scored for Columbus.
Washington finished with a 41-23 advantage in shots, but Bobrovsky was the equalizer.
Eric Fehr and Troy Brouwer had goals for the Capitals, whose three-game winning streak ended.
LIGHTNING 2, HURRICANES 1
In Tampa, Florida, Nikita Kucherov scored a pair of goals in the third period to lift Tampa Bay over Carolina. Kucherov scored the winner when his pass went off Carolina defenseman Ron Hainsey and into the net with 30.3 seconds to play.
Lightning backup Evgeni Nabokov made 29 saves in his 353rd NHL victory, two away from tying Rogie Vachon for 17th place on the league’s career list.
Justin Faulk scored for the Hurricanes, who have scored four goals during a four-game losing streak.
Cam Ward stopped 25 shots.
In other NHL action, it was:
‧ Kings 5, Senators 3
‧ Blues 6, Islanders 3
‧ Predators 5, Coyotes 1
‧ Avalanche 4, Jets 3, SO
‧ Sharks 2, Wild 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