Filip Forsberg and Matt Duchene on Thursday scored in a shoot-out for the visiting Nashville Predators, who outlasted the New Jersey Devils for a thrilling 6-5 victory in Newark, New Jersey.
It was a record-breaking 1,507th win (regular season and playoffs) for the Predators’ David Poile as club general manager, breaking a tie with Glen Sather for the most by any general manager in NHL history.
Predators head coach John Hynes also won his first game against the Devils since New Jersey fired him on Dec. 3 last year.
The Predators’ Forsberg scored twice in regulation, including the goal that forced overtime midway through the third period.
Duchene, Mattias Ekholm and Nick Bonino also scored for the Predators, who are 5-4-0 under Hynes, while goalie Pekka Rinne made 27 saves.
Pavel Zacha had two goals, while Nikita Gusev, Jesper Bratt and John Hayden scored once apiece for the Devils, who are 9-11-4 since Hynes was replaced by Alain Nasreddine. Goalie Mackenzie Blackwood recorded 25 saves.
CANADIENS 3, SABRES 1
Ilya Kovalchuk and Brendan Gallagher each scored second-period goals as the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Buffalo Sabres for their third straight road win.
Kovalchuk, playing his 10th game since joining Montreal, tied the game at 1-1 early in the second period with his fifth goal in seven games, while Gallagher returned from a six-game absence due to a concussion to score his 16th goal for the lead less than three minutes later.
Jack Eichel secured his first 30-goal season, while becoming the first Sabres player with at least 30 goals and 30 assists since Jason Pominville (30 goals, 43 assists) in the 2011-2012 season.
KINGS 3, COYOTES 2 (OT)
Alex Iafallo scored 24 seconds into overtime to help the Los Angeles Kings end a five-game losing streak and beat the Arizona Coyotes in Glendale, Arizona.
Iafallo finished with a hat-trick, scoring the game’s first goal and tying it at 2-2 with 2:54 to play in regulation before his game winner. Anze Kopitar assisted on two goals, while Jack Campbell saved 26 shots in goal.
Nick Schmaltz and Christian Dvorak scored for the Coyotes, who are 1-5-2 in their past eight games.
Coyotes goalie Adin Hill, pressed into service with All-Star Darcy Kuemper still not ready to return from a lower-body injury, stopped 35 shots.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with