New York’s Mika Zibanejad ripped a game-winning, power-play goal with 16 seconds left in regulation as the visiting Rangers shocked Tampa Bay 2-1 to complete a season sweep of the Lightning on Saturday night.
From the left circle, Zibanejad one-timed a cross-ice pass from Artemi Panarin for his third game-winning marker against the Lightning this season. He scored the only goal in the shootout in a 4-3 win in Tampa on Dec. 31. He then posted a hat trick in a 4-0 win two days later against the Lightning in New York.
Saturday’s goal was his 25th this season and 13th on the power play. New York went 1-for-6 on the man advantage.
Jacob Trouba tied his career-high with his 10th goal, and Igor Shesterkin (30-8-3) stopped 28 of 29 shots for the Rangers, who swept the season series from Tampa Bay for the first time since 2012-13.
Islanders 4, Stars 2
Brock Nelson scored a third-period hat trick for host New York, which extended its point streak to six games by beating visiting Dallas.
The hat trick was the fourth of Nelson’s career. It gave him eight goals in his last eight games and 27 goals in 50 games this season, breaking his previous career-high of 26 goals set in 68 games in 2019-20.
Ryan Pulock opened the scoring in the second period for the Islanders, who have won two straight and five of six (5-0-1) while building their second-longest point streak of the season. New York went 5-0-2 from Oct. 19 through Nov. 6. Islanders’ goalie Semyon Varlamov made 37 saves.
Canadiens 5, Senators 1
Jake Allen made 29 saves for his first victory since November, and Jake Evans recorded a goal and an assist as Montreal beat visiting Ottawa.
Paul Byron, Cole Caufield and Joel Armia each scored during a breakout second period, and Brett Kulak added some third-period insurance as the Canadiens, who halted an 0-1-2 rut at home.
Josh Norris posted his 26th goal for Ottawa, which has lost nine of its last 12 contests. The Senators’ Filip Gustavsson stopped 22 shots while his losing streak as a starter reached seven games. He has allowed five or more goals four times during that stretch.
Blue Jackets 5, Blues 4
Patrik Laine, Gustav Nyquist and Emil Bemstrom each had a goal and assist as Columbus edged visiting St. Louis.
Jakub Voracek and Sean Kuraly also scored for the Blue Jackets, and Oliver Bjorkstrand and Eric Robinson had two assists. Elvis Merzlikins stopped 19-of-21 shots for Columbus before exiting with an injury with 13:54 left. Joonas Korpisalo replaced him and allowed two goals on seven shots.
David Perron scored a hat trick for the Blues while extending his goal-scoring streak to six games. He has nine goals and two assists during that span. Alexei Toropchenko also scored for the Blues, and Brayden Schenn and Torey Krug had two assists.
Wild 3, Blackhawks 1
Ryan Hartman scored the go-ahead goal with 3:13 remaining in the third period to lift host Minnesota to a win over Chicago in St. Paul.
Hartman, who started his career with the Blackhawks, stung his former team with a wrist shot. It marked his career-high 25th goal and his second in as many games.
Frederick Gaudreau and Jordan Greenway also scored one goal apiece for Minnesota, which won its second game in a row and improved to 4-1-1 in its past six contests. Seth Jones scored the lone goal for Chicago, which is winless in three of its past four games.
Oilers 6, Devils 3
Evander Kane scored twice, including the tiebreaking power-play goal with 7:57 remaining, as Edmonton extended its winning streak to five games by rallying for a victory over visiting New Jersey.
Kane scored his 11th and 12th goals since making his debut with Edmonton on Jan. 29. He scored late in the second period and then tallied again when the Oilers held the puck for the entire man advantage after Leon Draisaitl drew a tripping penalty on New Jersey defenseman P.K. Subban.
Kane’s game-winner was part of a three-goal flurry in a span of 3:48 after New Jersey scored twice in the opening 3:14 of the third.
Golden Knights 5, Kings 1
Logan Thompson made 38 saves and Alex Pietrangelo had a goal and an assist to lead Vegas to a victory over visiting Los Angeles.
Evgenii Dadonov, Chandler Stephenson, Mattias Janmark and Michael Amadio also scored goals for Vegas which won its second straight game following a five-game losing streak. With the win, the Golden Knights remained in the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference, three points ahead of Dallas.
It was the third career win in his fifth NHL start for Thompson. Phillip Danault scored and Cal Petersen finished with 19 saves for Los Angeles, which remained in second place in the Pacific Division, two points ahead of Edmonton.
Kraken 4, Red Wings 2
Yanni Gourde scored twice, including the go-ahead goal at 13:03 of the third period, as Seattle posted four goals in the third to rally past visiting Detroit.
Adam Larsson and Jaden Schwartz also scored for Seattle, which had lost 12 of its previous 14 games (2-10-2). Goaltender Philipp Grubauer made 21 saves.
Joe Veleno and Taro Hirose scored in the second period for Detroit, which blew a two-goal lead in the final period to lose for the seventh time in its past eight games. Alex Nedeljkovic, who was coming off a 43-save shutout Thursday in Vancouver, stopped 38 of 41 shots.
Penguins 4, Coyotes 1
Sidney Crosby scored twice and Evgeni Malkin once in the third period as Pittsburgh won for the fourth time in five games, defeating Arizona in Glendale, Ariz.
Kasperi Kapanen also scored for the Penguins, and goaltender Tristan Jarry improved to 6-1 in his past seven games with 20 saves.
Clayton Keller scored for the Coyotes, who had won two straight games and six of seven. Arizona goaltender Scott Wedgewood made 45 saves.
Flames 5, Canucks 2
Matthew Tkachuk had a goal and two assists as Calgary stretched its lead in the Pacific Division to eight points by beating host Vancouver.
Rasmus Andersson had a goal and an assist, and Noah Hanifin, Elias Lindholm and Johnny Gaudreau also scored. Dan Vladar made 23 saves for the Flames.
Matthew Highmore and Brock Boeser scored for the Canucks, who have lost four of five to dim their playoff hopes. Thatcher Demko allowed four goals on 29 shots over two periods before he was replaced by Jaroslav Halak, who made 14 saves.
Predators 6, Maple Leafs 3
Filip Forsberg scored once to set a franchise record in goals and added an assist, and Nashville defeated visiting Toronto.
Forsberg’s 33rd goal of the season came in the third period and gave him a franchise record of 211, passing David Legwand.
Eeli Tolvanen, Matt Duchene and Yakov Trenin also had a goal and an assist each for the Predators, who have won six of their past eight. Tanner Jeannot and Mattias Ekholm added goals, Roman Josi had three assists and Colton Sissons had two assists.
PARIS (AP) — French judicial authorities are investigating the disappearance of two Paralympic athletes from Congo who recently competed in the Paris Games, the prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Thursday.
Prosecutors opened the investigation on Sept. 7, after members of the athletes’ delegation warned authorities of their disappearance two days before.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that shot putter Mireille Nganga and Emmanuel Grace Mouambako, a visually impaired sprinter who was accompanied by a guide, went missing on Sept. 5, along with a third person.
The athletes’ suitcases were also gone but their passports remained with the Congolese delegation, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
The Paralympic Committee of the Democratic Republic of Congo did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.
Nganga — who recorded no mark in the seated javelin and shot put competitions — and Mouambako were Congo’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, organizers said.
An investigator gave the World Anti-Doping Agency a pass on its handling of the inflammatory case involving Chinese swimmers, but not without hammering away at the “curious” nature of WADA’s “silence” after examining Chinese actions that did not follow rules designed to safeguard global sports.
WADA on Thursday released the full decision from Eric Cottier, the Swiss investigator it appointed to analyze its handling of the case involving the 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
In echoing wording from an interim report issued earlier this summer, Cottier said it was “reasonable” that WADA chose not to appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s explanation that the positives came from contamination.
“Taking into consideration the particularities of the case, (WADA) appears … to have acted in accordance with the rules it has itself laid out for anti-doping organizations,” Cottier wrote.
But peppered throughout his granular, 56-page analysis of the case was evidence and reminders of how WADA disregarded some of China’s violations of anti-doping protocols. Cottier concluded this happened more for the sake of expediency than to show favoritism toward the Chinese.
“In retrospect at least, the Agency’s silence is curious, in the face of a procedure that does not respect the fundamental rules, and its lack of reaction is surprising,” Cottier wrote of WADA’s lack of fealty to the world anti-doping code.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and one of WADA’s fiercest critics, latched onto this dynamic, saying Cottier’s information “clearly shows that China did not follow the rules, and that WADA management did nothing about it.”
One of the chief complaints over the handling of this case was that neither WADA nor the Chinese gave any public notice upon learning of the positive tests for the banned heart medication Temozolomide, known as TMZ.
The athletes also were largely kept in the dark and the burden to prove their innocence was taken up by Chinese authorities, not the athletes themselves, which runs counter to what the rulebook demands.
Despite the criticisms, WADA generally welcomed the report.
“Above all, (Cottier) reiterated that WADA showed no bias towards China and that its decision not to appeal the cases was reasonable based on the evidence,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said. “There are however certainly lessons to be learned by WADA and others from this situation.”
Tygart said “this report validates our concerns and only raises new questions that must be answered.”
Cottier expanded on doubts WADA’s own chief scientist, Olivier Rabin, had expressed over the Chinese contamination theory — snippets of which were introduced in the interim report. Rabin was wary of the idea that “a few micrograms” of TMZ found in the kitchen at the hotel where the swimmers stayed could be enough to cause the group contamination.
“Since he was not in a position to exclude the scenario of contamination with solid evidence, he saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities,” Cottier wrote.
Though recommendations for changes had been expected in the report, Cottier made none, instead referring to several comments he’d made earlier in the report.
Key among them were his misgivings that a case this big was largely handled in private — a breach of custom, if not the rules themselves — both while China was investigating and after the file had been forwarded to WADA. Not until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on the positives were any details revealed.
“At the very least, the extraordinary nature of the case (23 swimmers, including top-class athletes, 28 positive tests out of 60 for a banned substance of therapeutic origin, etc.), could have led to coordinated and concerted reflection within the Agency, culminating in a formal and clearly expressed decision to take no action,” the report said.
WADA’s executive committee established a working group to address two more of Cottier’s criticisms — the first involving what he said was essentially WADA’s sloppy recordkeeping and lack of formal protocol, especially in cases this complex; and the second a need to better flesh out rules for complex cases involving group contamination.
The French league’s legal commission has ordered Paris Saint-Germain to pay Kylian Mbappé the 55 million euros ($61 million) in unpaid wages that he claims he’s entitled to, the league said Thursday.
The league confirmed the decision to The Associated Press without more details, a day after the France superstar rejected a mediation offer by the commission in his dispute with his former club.
