Chris Mason made 28 saves for his sixth shutout of the season, helping the St Louis Blues take the sixth playoff spot in the Western Conference with a 1-0 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday in the regular-season finale.
In the playoffs for the first time in five years, the Blues — with nine wins in their final 11 games, will face Vancouver in the opening round.
Brad Boyes scored the only goal of the game early in the first period.
PHOTO: AP
RANGERS 4, FLYERS 3
At Philadelphia, Sean Avery and Blair Betts scored third-period goals to lift New York, spoiling Philadelphia’s shot at home-ice advantage against Pittsburgh in its opening playoff series.
Brandon Dubinsky scored two goals for the Rangers, set to open the playoffs against Southeast Division champion Washington.
Dubinsky’s second goal was short-handed, wrecking Philadelphia’s shot at becoming the first team in NHL history to play an entire season without allowing one. The Flyers’ streak of 103 games without surrendering a short-handed goal was the longest since Montreal went 122 games from March 1975 to November 1976.
Jeff Carter scored his 46th goal to finish second behind Washington’s Alex Ovechkin (56) for the NHL lead. Danny Briere and Claude Giroux also scored.
BLACKHAWKS 3, RED WINGS 0
At Chicago, Nikolai Khabibulin made 37 saves for his 41st career shutout as the Blackhawks tuned up for their first playoff appearance in seven years by beating Detroit.
Andrew Ladd and Jonathan Toews scored first-period goal, and Dave Bolland converted on the power play in the third. Khabibulin has three shutouts this season. Chicago, a 4-2 winner over the Red Wings on Saturday in Detroit, was 6-0-1 in its final seven games and will open the playoffs against Calgary. Defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings will face Columbus in the first round.
BRUINS 6, ISLANDERS 2
At Uniondale, New York, Phil Kessel had three goals and an assist, and Tim Thomas made 32 saves for his 36th victory for Eastern Conference champion Boston.
Michael Ryder, Marc Savard and Chuck Kobasew also scored for the Bruins, who will face Montreal in the first round of the playoffs.
Radek Martinek and Doug Weight scored for New York. The Islanders finished last overall in the NHL, losing their last four games.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
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