Jaromir Jagr on Friday night scored the go-ahead goal in the second period and James Reimer made 35 saves as the Florida Panthers defeated the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 for their third consecutive win.
Colton Sceviour had a goal, Aaron Ekblad scored on the power play and Derek MacKenzie added an empty-net goal, giving the Panthers six wins in their past seven games.
Florida now trail Toronto by one point for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Andrew Cogliano scored a short-handed goal and John Gibson stopped 27 shots for the Ducks, who had picked up a point in 12 of their previous 14 home games.
Jagr gave Florida a 2-1 lead with a moment of his ageless brilliance. He stole the puck from defenseman Josh Manson coming out from behind the Ducks’ net and calmly used a series of dekes before pocketing his 760th career goal.
BLUE JACKETS 2, PENGUINS 1, OT
In Columbus, Ohio, Brandon Dubinsky scored just more than a minute into overtime as the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Dubinsky lifted a shot over Matt Murray as he skated into the slot to win it for the Blue Jackets.
Sergei Bobrovsky had 38 saves, while Ryan Murray scored in the second period as Columbus moved within a point of Pittsburgh for second place in the rough Metropolitan Division.
Murray made 37 saves, while Ian Cole scored for the Penguins, who were playing the second game of a back-to-back.
The Penguins lost for the first time in four games.
In Friday’s other result, it was:
‧ Avalanche 2, Hurricanes 1, OT
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