Goalie Jacob Markstrom on Wednesday stopped 49 shots for his second shutout of the season as the Vancouver Canucks blanked the visiting Chicago Blackhawks 3-0.
It was the fifth career shutout for Markstrom, who also picked up his 22nd win of the season. The Canucks improved to 19-6-3 at home, the most home wins by any Western Conference team, and won for the 11th time in their past 12 games at the Rogers Arena.
Brandon Sutter had a goal and two assists, while Bo Horvat and Adam Gaudette also scored goals for Vancouver, who extended their lead in the Pacific Division to three points over the Edmonton Oilers.
Photo: AP
Goalie Corey Crawford finished with 17 saves for the Blackhawks, who saw their winless streak extended to a season-long five games (0-3-2), despite firing a season-high 49 shots on goal.
Chicago dominated action for most of the first period, outshooting the Canucks 17-7, but still trailed 1-0 at the end of the period.
Chicago appeared to take a 1-0 lead when Patrick Kane put in a rebound of his own shot, but the goal was quickly waved off by officials for goalie interference on Brandon Saad, who was hugging the crossbar behind Markstrom.
The Blackhawks challenged the call, but it was upheld, resulting in a two-minute delay-of-game penalty.
Vancouver instead took the 1-0 lead on the ensuing power play when Horvat took a goal-line feed from Sutter at the bottom of the left circle and snapped a shot past Crawford’s glove side.
The Canucks made it 2-0 at 6 minutes, 25 seconds of the second period when Antoine Roussel found a wide-open Gaudette on the right side of the net.
Gaudette then roofed a shot for his 10th goal of the season.
Chicago pulled Crawford for an extra attacker with three minutes remaining, while Sutter sealed the victory with a long empty-net goal with 2:09 left, his eighth goal of the season.
Also on Wednesday, it was:
‧ Bruins 4, Canadiens 1
‧ Kings 5, Flames 3
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