Archive for Vancouver

Jarret Stoll beat Cory Schneider with a wrist shot at 4:27 of overtime to give the Los Angeles Kings a 2-1 victory over host Vancouver on Sunday night, knocking out the top-seeded Canucks in five games in the Western Conference first-round series.

Stoll scored from the left wing after a turnover at Vancouver’s blue line. The forward skated in on a 2-on-1 but took the shot himself, picking the top-left corner above Schneider’s blocker.

Brad Richardson tied it for Los Angeles at 3:21 of the third period, and Jonathan Quick made 26 saves.

Henrik Sedin opened the scoring for Vancouver with a power-play goal in the first period.

Schneider made 35 saves in his third straight start after Roberto Luongo lost the first two games.

The Kings will play the second-seeded St. Louis Blues in the second round.

The Canucks dropped out in the first round after leading the NHL in regular-season points for the second straight year. Last season, they lost to Boston in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.

Vancouver’s new second line of Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Max Lapierre made a quick impression. Burrows fed Kesler from behind the net about a 90 seconds in, but Quick stopped the center’s shot from the slot.

The Canucks then ran into early penalty trouble and didn’t get another shot for 6 minutes before Lapierre put one on Quick. Vancouver killed penalties to Dan Hamhuis and Sedin but couldn’t get its power play going on its

first advantage.

However, with Sedin double-shifting, the Canucks capitalized on the second when the Vancouver captain put in a cross-ice pass from twin brother Daniel Sedin with 5:56 left in the period.

The opportunity came after Hamhuis kept Mike Richards’ clearing attempt in at the blue line.

Schneider preserved the lead when he stopped Anze Kopitar on a breakaway in the dying seconds of the first period. Kopitar put the rebound off the post as time expired.

Flyers 5, Penguins 1: Claude Giroux had his coach, Peter Laviolette, call him the best player in the world. Giroux needed one shift to prove that claim is more than hometown hype.

He flattened Sidney Crosby only 5 seconds into the game, buried his sixth goal of the series past Marc-Andre Fleury 27 seconds later, and led Philadelphia’s charge into the second round.

Giroux wrapped up a dominant series with a goal and two assists, Ilya Bryzgalov had his first outstanding effort in net and the host Flyers beat 108-point Pittsburgh to win their Eastern Conference opening-round series in six games.

“G is a very special player,” Bryzgalov said. “There’s not very many players like that in the world.”

“We needed to play perfect hockey to stay in this series, to win this series, and we didn’t get the kind of start we needed today,” Crosby said.

Bruins 4, Capitals 3: Tyler Seguin scored at 3:17 of overtime, Tim Thomas made 36 saves, and Boston beat host Washington to tie the first-round Eastern Conference playoff series at three games apiece.

The defending Stanley Cup champion Bruins never trailed but needed a stolen pass and a deft bit of skating to finally get the decisive goal and avoid being eliminated by the seventh-seeded Capitals. Game 7 is Wednesday night in Boston.

View the original article here

Categories : USA
Comments (0)