Nathan MacKinnon on Thursday night kept up his scoring spree with a second-period goal and Philipp Grubauer halted 32 shots for his first career playoff shutout as the Colorado Avalanche beat the San Jose Sharks 3-0 to tie the NHL Western Conference semifinal series at two games apiece.
MacKinnon has at least a point in eight straight games. It is the longest streak by an Avalanche player in the post-season since Peter Forsberg had a point in eight straight in 2002.
Colin Wilson gave Colorado a two-goal cushion with a power-play goal early in the third period. His goal was set up by a no-look, between-the-legs pass from Mikko Rantanen, who registered two assists.
Erik Johnson added an empty-netter with 1 minute, 9 seconds remaining.
BRUINS 4, BLUE JACKETS 1
In Columbus, Ohio, Tuukka Rask stopped 39 shots as the Boston Bruins got some much-needed production from their top-liners in a win over the Blue Jackets that evened their NHL Eastern Conference semi-final series at two games apiece.
Patrice Bergeron had two goals. David Pastrnak had a goal and an assist, while Sean Kuraly also tallied for the Bruins, who knotted the series again as it moves back to Boston for Game 5 today.
Artemi Panarin scored for Columbus on a controversial play, and Sergei Bobrovsky, who has been spectacular in the post-season so far, had 41 saves but was beaten on long shots by Pastrnak and Bergeron in the first period.
Brad Marchand picked up an assist on Bergeron’s goal, but also committed three penalties, one leading to an unsuccessful Blue Jackets penalty shot in the first period.
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