A remarkable rookie and a 40-year-old goalie have kept this Stanley Cup series alive, helping the New Jersey Devils beat the Los Angeles Kings 3-1 on Wednesday night to avoid a sweep in the finals.
Adam Henrique scored the tie-breaking goal with 4 minutes, 29 seconds to play and Martin Brodeur made 21 saves for the Eastern Conference champion Devils, who forced the NHL to pack up the Cup for another cross-country trip before hosting Game 5 tomorrow night.
Patrik Elias and Ilya Kovalchuk also scored third-period goals for the Devils, who lost the first three games of the series.
Photo: AFP
“It’s a tough situation, but we live another day,” Brodeur said. “We wanted to at least have one more game in our building for our fans. Hopefully, we’ll make the best of it and come back here.”
The Kings have won all 10 of their road playoff games this spring and 12 straight overall — both NHL post-season records — but after never trailing in the Stanley Cup Final, the Kings never led in Game 4.
“I think [wrapping it up] was definitely on our minds, but they found a way to get a late goal,” Kings captain Dustin Brown said. “We’ve just got to hit the reset button. We’ve been in this situation now four times in the playoffs, and we’ve always come back with a big rebound game.”
After two tense, scoreless periods in front of fans hoping to see the Kings win their first title in their 45-year history, Elias scored on a rebound with 12:04 to play — but Drew Doughty scored a tying power-play goal for the Kings 1:02 later.
Henrique then scored his third enormous goal of the post-season, taking a pass from David Clarkson and rocketing a wrist shot past Jonathan Quick, the Kings’ nearly unbeatable goalie. The Calder Trophy finalist ended two of the Devils’ first three playoff series with overtime goals, and he kept New Jersey alive with his latest.
“That’s probably the best feeling I’ve ever had in my whole career,” said Clarkson, who took the questionable penalty that led to Doughty’s goal. “I saw [Henrique] coming, so I got it to him, and the shot was incredible.”
Quick stopped 21 shots for the Kings, but lost his streak of nearly 139 shutout minutes right when he probably could have wrapped up the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
The Kings had allowed just one third-period goal in their previous nine games.
Kovalchuk added an empty-netter that sent fans streaming forlornly out into a warm evening in Southern California — and put the Devils back on their plane with a chance.
“We stayed alive,” said Elias, who has two of the Devils’ five goals in the series. “Marty had to work hard, but he gave us a chance. All we’ve got to do is keep playing hard.”
With a golden chance for a Hockeywood ending, Los Angeles dropped to 15-3 in their spectacular post-season run, failing to win the franchise’s first championship on their first try — and in their 200th playoff game — in front of the long-suffering fans who have never seen the Stanley Cup.
Los Angeles set an NHL record by taking a 3-0 lead in all four of their playoff series, but failed three times to close out their opponents in Game 4. Vancouver and Phoenix also won Game 4, before losing Game 5.
The Devils became just the sixth of 26 teams in finals history to force a Game 5 after falling behind 0-3. Only the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs ever rallied with four straight wins in the finals, and only three teams in NHL history have done it in any playoff round.
“I think the last three games could have gone our way as easily as they’ve gone LA’s way,” Devils coach Peter DeBoer said. “We finally got rewarded tonight.”
After a tight-checking game between two very tight teams, Elias’ rebound goal put a hush over the Staples Center.
Six seconds after Clarkson went off with that questionable boarding penalty, Mike Richards passed Anze Kopitar’s faceoff win to Doughty, who rocketed a long shot past Brodeur for the fourth goal of his breakthrough post-season.
However, after so many minutes of tight defense, New Jersey won it with a stunning goal in transition: Former Kings forward Alexei Ponikarovsky got the puck to Clarkson, who found Henrique across the ice for his first goal since ending the Eastern Conference finals with an overtime goal.
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
TWO IN A WEEK: Despite an undefeated start to the year playing alongside Jiang Xinyu of China, Wu Fang-hsien is to play the Australian Open with a Russian partner Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien yesterday triumphed at the Hobart International, winning the women’s doubles title at the US$275,094 outdoor hard-court tournament, while McCartney Kessler lifted the trophy in the women’s singles. Fourth-ranked Wu and partner Jiang Xinyu of China took 1 hour, 15 minutes to defeat Romania’s Monica Niculescu and Fanny Stollar of Hungary, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) at the Hobart International Tennis Centre, their second title in a week. Wu and Jiang on Sunday won the women’s doubles title at the ASB Classic in Auckland, beating Serbia’s Aleksandra Krunic and Sabrina Santamaria of the US. Their winning ways continued in Australia as they stretched
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
RSS