Ruslan Salei scored off Adam Oates' faceoff win at 6:59 into overtime and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, taking advantage of one of the biggest misplays of Martin Brodeur's career, beat the New Jersey Devils 3-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals Saturday night.
Oates fed the puck off the faceoff to Salei at the top of the slot, and Brodeur barely reacted to his one-timer as the Mighty Ducks improved to 6-0 in playoff overtimes. The Devils are 2-2.
It was essentially a must-win game for the Ducks, who played with the desperation expected of a team that trailed 2-0 in the series and almost certainly would have had no chance to raise the cup had it lost.
Salei's goal was his second of the playoffs and, no doubt, the biggest of his career.
Game 4 will be Monday night, when the Devils can either take a commanding 3-1 lead or the Mighty Ducks will tie a series they seemed out of following two dominating Devils wins in New Jersey.
Overtime playoff wins have largely been responsible for Anaheim's remarkable playoff run, which began with three consecutive series-opening overtime victories.
Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere has been unbeatable in overtime, with an NHL-record overtime scoreless streak of 166 minutes, 4 seconds. He broke Patrick Roy's record of 162:56 early in the overtime. Giguere turned aside 29 of 31 shots in by far his best game of the finals.
The Devils trailed 2-1 in the second after Brodeur lost his stick and couldn't defend Sandis Ozolinsh's seemingly harmless shot as it trickled in from the blue line.
But the Devils tied it at 2 when Scott Gomez deflected Grant Marshall's wrister from above the right circle past Giguere at 9:11 of the third. Gomez has two goals in the finals after scoring only once in 16 games.
That might have won it had Brodeur not made a grievous mistake on a play that couldn't have been more routine.
Only 45 seconds after the Devils' Patrik Elias tied it at 1, Giguere fed the puck up ice to Ozolinsh who, draped by two Devils, pushed it toward the net.
Brodeur, positioned at the left of the crease, began to scramble over to play the puck, only to drop his stick. With Brodeur unable to defend, the puck trickled into the side of the net as the goalie dropped to his knees, raising his hand to his head in disbelief.
It was a perfectly awful play by the goalie who was near perfect for the first seven periods of the series.
The maddening misplay at 14:47 of the second came slightly more than 11 minutes after Ozolinsh set up Anaheim's first goal of the series, by the infrequently used Marc Chouinard. That goal at 3:39 of the second ended Brodeur's scoreless streak of 143 minutes, 39 seconds, the second-longest to start the finals.
Ozolinsh shot the puck toward the net from along the boards, and it deflected off Chouinard's stick and past Brodeur to the glove side. The Devils scored the first goal in each of the first two games on their home ice, and the Ducks never challenged after that in either game.
Chouinard was scratched for the Ducks' last five games before the finals and had only three goals all season.
The first period was scoreless for the third straight game, but the tempo was much different from the first two games. The Mighty Ducks, challenged Friday by Giguere to be more emotional and physical, were both -- sometimes to their disadvantage.
Steve Thomas, playing in his first finals at age 39, tried to set the tone from the start, only to draw a cross-checking penalty 15 seconds in. Mike Leclerc drew another for slashing about 3 1/2 minutes later.
However, New Jersey's power play, the second-worst in the league during the regular season, didn't convert either time. The Devils' power play is only 11-of-72 in the playoffs.
Anaheim star Paul Kariya, held without a shot in Game 3 for the first time in 30 playoff games, had his best scoring chance of the series with about four minutes left in the first period, but Brodeur stopped his rebound attempt from along the goal line.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
The Minnesota Timberwolves, with so many promising performances spoiled by late mistakes fresh in their memory bank, sure timed this strong finish well. Jaden McDaniels scored a career playoff-high 30 points and spearheaded Minnesota’s stifling defense on an ailing Luka Doncic, and the Timberwolves beat the Los Angeles Lakers 116-104 to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Friday night. “Jaden never looks tired. He looks like he could play 48 minutes,” said teammate Anthony Edwards, who had 29 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Julius Randle added 22 points for the Wolves, who outscored
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
RSS