Marc-Andre Fleury on Saturday night recorded his 40th career shutout as the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-0 in Phil Kessel’s return to the Air Canada Centre.
Pittsburgh earned their fourth consecutive win and improved to 7-1-0 since losing their first three games of the season. Toronto kept Kessel, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin off the scoresheet, but the Penguins stars had plenty of help in adding to the Leafs’ early misery this season.
Chris Kunitz, Eric Fehr, Matt Cullen and Patric Hornqvist scored before a Halloween crowd of 19,197 that included Super Mario and Superman. Many left before the final whistle.
Photo: USA Today
Kessel had 395 points in 446 games for the Leafs. However, he was dealt to Pittsburgh in July after president Brendan Shanahan said fans could not understand “people that go out and give half-efforts and that don’t appear to enjoy playing here.”
BRUINS 3, LIGHTNING 1
In Tampa, Florida, Jonas Gustavsson stopped 21 shots and Brett Connolly’s power-play goal snapped a third-period tie to help the Boston Bruins remain unbeaten on the road.
Photo: AP
Connolly scored during a 13-second five-on-three opportunity with just more than 14 minutes remaining, and the Bruins extended their point streak to seven games (6-0-1) after opening the season with three consecutive losses. They also improved to 5-0-0 on the road in the club’s longest such streak since winning a franchise-best nine straight in March last year.
Tampa Bay continued to sputter offensively, losing their fourth straight game. The defending Eastern Conference champions led the NHL in scoring a year ago, but have been limited to two goals during their longest skid in two seasons.
BLUES 3, WILD 2, OT
In St Louis, Missouri, David Backes scored at 4 minutes, 26 seconds of overtime for his second goal of the game to send St Louis to the win.
Backes had time to load up on a shot from the high slot, and he drove it past Devan Dubnyk off a setup from Ty Rattie. Backes had no goals and two assists this season coming into the night.
The Blues surrendered a 2-0 lead in the first period, but won their third in a row and improved to 8-2-1 while playing without several top players. Forward Vladimir Tarasenko (lower body) joined Paul Stastny, Jaden Schwartz and Kevin Shattenkirk on the injury list.
Alexander Steen also scored and Jake Allen had 29 saves for St Louis, who allowed just one shot during Minnesota’s two-man advantage of 62 seconds in the second period.
Jason Zucker and Erik Haula scored for Minnesota.
STARS 5, SHARKS 3
In Dallas, Antoine Roussel broke a third-period tie for the second time in three games as Dallas went on to the win.
The game-winners are the only goals this season for Roussel, who also had two assists against San Jose.
John Klingberg’s shot from the right point hit Sharks goalie Alex Stalock’s pads and Roussel’s skate, and the puck trickled across the goal line with 6 minutes, 27 seconds to play. Tyler Seguin added a power-play goal into an empty net.
Dallas have won eight of their last nine games. San Jose have lost five of six.
For San Jose, Joe Pavelski and Joel Ward scored on the power play, and Matt Nieto had a short-handed goal.
KINGS 4, PREDATORS 3, OT
In Los Angeles, Jeff Carter scored 4 minutes, 42 seconds into overtime and Tyler Toffoli continued his strong start with two more goals as Los Angeles extended their winning streak to seven games by beating Nashville.
Rookie Andy Andreoff also scored, and Jonathan Quick made 31 saves for the Kings, whose streak began after a 0-3 start.
Nashville defenseman Ryan Ellis scored the tying goal with 6 minutes, 4 seconds left in the third period, and Pekka Rinne stopped 25 shots for the Predators, who had won the previous five meetings — all by one-goal margins.
James Neal and Shea Weber scored power-play goals less than three-and-a-half minutes apart in the second period for Nashville, while teammates Filip Forsberg and Roman Josi each had two assists.
In other results, it was:
‧ Red Wings 5, Senators 3
‧ Devils 3, Islanders 2, SO
‧ Capitals 2, Panthers 1, OT
‧ Flames 5, Oilers 4
‧ Jets 3, Blue Jackets 2
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