Jean-Sebastien Giguere made 35 saves for his third straight shutout and Paul Kariya scored twice as Anaheim beat the Minnesota Wild 4-0 Wednesday for a 3-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.
The Ducks, a stunning 11-2 in the playoffs, can sweep Minnesota with a victory Friday in Anaheim.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Playing in his first postseason, Giguere extended his sensational run by becoming the first goaltender in modern league history to record three consecutive shutouts in the next-to-last round of the playoffs.
The 25-year-old goaltender's scoreless streak reached 213 minutes, 17 seconds, going back to the third period of the Ducks' clinching Game 6 victory over Dallas.
The playoff record is 248:32 by Detroit's Normie Smith way back in 1936.
Giguere, who has four shutouts in the playoffs, has stopped 98 Minnesota shots in the conference finals. He became the first goalie to open a series with three straight shutouts since Toronto's Frank McCool against Detroit in 1945.
In Anaheim's first one-sided win of the postseason, Steve Rucchin scored 4:59 into the game, then the Ducks took control with a three-goal flurry in the second period.
Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire, who has alternated goaltenders through the playoffs, pulled Dwayne Roloson after the Ducks scored their third goal. Manny Fernandez gave up another goal shortly afterward.
Roloson allowed three goals while facing 16 shots.
Kariya made it 2-0 with his slap shot from the slot after Adam Oates fed him a perfect pass from behind the net. Stanislav Chistov scored four minutes later when he wristed a back-hander past Roloson.
Kariya scored his second goal of the game and team-high fifth of the playoffs just 1:35 later with a baseball-like swing after the puck bounced off Fernandez's pads into the air just to the goalie's left.
Officials reviewed the play and determined Kariya's stick was not above the crossbar.
Oates and Petr Sykora assisted on both of Kariya's goals.
Only two teams have come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series: The 1975 New York Islanders rallied to beat Pittsburgh in the quarterfinals, and the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs came back to beat Detroit in the Stanley Cup finals.
Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday held their nerve to beat Liverpool 4-1 on penalties and reach the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals after their tie finished one-apiece on aggregate, while Bayern Munich saw off Bayer 04 Leverkusen to complete a 5-0 win over both legs. Lamine Yamal and Raphinha fired Barcelona into the next round as the Catalans bested SL Benfica 3-1, and Inter booked a last-eight meeting with Bayern by seeing off Feyenoord 2-1. At Anfield, Ousmane Dembele netted the only goal of the night as PSG bounced back from Liverpool’s late winner last week to force the tie to extra-time and penalties. Maligned
Taiwan’s Lin Chun-yi on Wednesday inflicted a first-round defeat on former badminton world No. 1 Viktor Axelsen at the All England Open. Lin came out of top after a back-and-forth first game before Axelsen dominated the second, but the Dane was not able to keep that form in the decider as Lin reeled off six points in a row on the way to a 21-19, 13-21, 21-11 victory. “If I don’t play my best, everyone can win against me,” said Axelsen, the world No. 4. “Today’s opponent played a fantastic game; it was disappointing, but that is how it is.” “I just tried
Two-time Indian Wells champion Iga Swiatek on Thursday avenged her shock Paris Olympics loss to Zheng Qinwen with a 6-3, 6-3 win over the Chinese eighth seed, setting up a semi-final against 17-year-old Russian Mirra Andreeva in the California desert. In the men’s singles, Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz put on a show with his acrobatic shotmaking under the lights to close out the day’s action, overcoming a 4-1 second-set deficit to defeat Francisco Cerundolo 6-3, 7-6 (7/4), while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei crashed out of the women’s doubles. Swiatek, one of the gold medal favorites when she lost to eventual champion Zheng in the
UNDERDOG STORY: Lee said that he did not expect to do this well, overcoming French favorite Alex Lanier to advance to his first BWF World Tour Super 1000 final Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao on Saturday continued his fairytale run at the All England Open, dispatching France’s Alex Lanier to set up a final against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi of China after press time last night. Lee, staged a comeback after losing the first game to overcome in-form Lanier, the last remaining European in the competition, 19-21 21-14 21-17, as the Taiwanese shuttler advanced to his first BWF World Tour Super 1000 final. “The victory hasn’t sunk in yet. I didn’t expect that I would do this well,” the world No. 22 said. “I’m so surprised by the result myself.” “I was really
RSS