It sounded like an overtime goal in the playoffs. The Bell Centre on Thursday night erupted in a deafening roar when defenseman Victor Mete scored his first NHL goal in his 127th game.
Montreal went on to beat the Minnesota Wild 4-0, with Nick Suzuki also scoring his first NHL goal and Carey Price making 17 saves for his first shutout of the season and 45th overall.
“It feels good to finally get that out of the way,” Mete said. “That was pretty cool. The crowd was going pretty nuts. It was ear-piercing.”
Photo: AFP
“Everybody’s wanted me to score for quite a while, so to see everyone get as excited as they did, it’s pretty special. It means a lot,” he added.
He ended the longest goal drought to start a career in Canadiens history, a mark previously held by Mike Komisarek at 122 games. It also ended the longest active drought in the league.
“The fans saw him score his first goal and they made sure to show him their support,” coach Claude Julien said. “No doubt, it’s going to be engraved in his mind — definitely a special night for him.”
Mete’s goal was the first of three for Montreal in a 4 minute, 46 second span in the first period.
The 21-year-old found space in the slot, took a backhand pass from Nick Cousins from behind the net and beat Alex Stalock glove side with 5 minutes, 23 seconds left in the period.
“I heard Mete yell for it, so I just kind of whipped it out front and he was nice enough to bury it,” said Cousins, who was making his Canadiens debut. “I didn’t know it was his first goal. That’s exciting for him.”
“I like my steak medium rare. We’ll have to figure that out tomorrow for dinner. He’s buying for sure,” Cousins added.
Joel Armia and Brendan Gallagher also scored to help Montreal improve to 3-2-2.
Stalock stopped 28 shots for the reeling Wild. They dropped to 1-6-0.
Armia connected on a five-on-three power play with 2 minutes, 28 seconds left in the first. He leads Montreal with four goals.
Suzuki scored with 37 seconds remaining in the period. A whiffed shot from Jeff Petry landed right on Suzuki’s backhand before Stalock could cover the right post.
Gallagher put a fourth past Stalock at 12 minutes, 40 seconds of the third period.
In other results, it was:
‧ Devils 5, Rangers 2
‧ Lightning 4, Bruins 3 SO
‧ Canucks 4, Blues 3 SO
‧ Islanders 3, Jets 1
‧ Flames 5, Red Wings 1
‧ Coyotes 5, Predators 2
‧ Golden Knights 3, Senators 2 SO
‧ Sabres 3, Kings 0
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