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Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
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The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
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AP
NEWARK, N.J. - Ilya Kovalchuk’s debut with the New Jersey Devils had a storybook ending, except journeyman Jay Pandolfo provided the big goal instead of the high-scoring Russian.
Pandolfo capped a three-goal outburst in the final 3:04 and the Devils welcomed Kovalchuk by rallying for a 4-3 victory over the stunned Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night.
“The whole game I was asking players to win battles, to be better with the puck,” Devils coach Jacques Lemaire said. “We had to be better. We couldn’t do that. We did only the last two minutes and 50 seconds. Then everything was working. The skating, passing the puck, making plays. How it happened? I don’t know.”
What Lemaire knew was that Dean McAmmond, Travis Zajac and Pandolfo scored in the wild finish to turn a disappointing debut for Kovalchuk into a wild celebration.
The explosive Kovalchuk, acquired from Atlanta on Thursday in a blockbuster five-player deal, finished with two assists, but really wasn’t much of a factor in the stunning comeback.
“It wasn’t my best game, but I think we did all right, especially getting the two points,” said Kovalchuk, whose biggest play might have been keeping the puck in the Maple Leafs’ zone prior to Zajac’s goal.
The Devils had hoped that the addition of Kovalchuk would jump-start their slumping offense and give New Jersey a marquee goal scorer to lead a Stanley Cup run.
However, Toronto was the better team for much of the opening 57 minutes. Second-period goals by Tomas Kaberle, Lee Stempniak and Rickard Wallin had the Maple Leafs on the verge of going 2-0 since acquiring defenseman Dion Phaneuf and goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere.
Then came the collapse.
“When you get new guys, it’s strange. Sometimes you are watching a little bit too much,” Pandolfo said. “You’re thinking and not playing the right way. It takes a little bit of time to get used to each other.”
The Devils waited about as long as they could before snapping a two-game losing streak and winning for only the second time in six games.
McAmmond started the comeback by taking a pass from Vladimir Zharkov and beating Gustavsson with a backhander to cut the Maple Leafs’ lead to a goal.
Less than a minute later, Alexei Ponikarovsky was called for hooking, and Zajac tied it with 44 seconds to go after taking a nice cross-ice pass from McAmmond.
With everyone thinking overtime, the Devils attacked and stole the game. Defenseman Mike Mottau took a shot that Gustavsson stopped, but Pandolfo scored his first goal in 16 games by converting the rebound his fourth goal of the season.
“I just kind of went into the zone and Jamie (Langenbrunner) made a great play back to Mike Mottau,” Pandolfo said. “He had a good shot and I just went to the net for the rebound. I was at the right place at the right time.”
Gustavsson could not explain what happened to the Maple Leafs.
“We’ve had a couple of games like this where we were up a couple of goals in the third period,” he said. “It’s tough right now. We just have to move on.”
Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Doron Lamb hit a 3-pointer with 3:18 left to put No. 1 Kentucky ahead to stay, and the Wildcats took a big step toward a Southeastern Conference regular-season title by beating Vanderbilt 69-63 Saturday night for their 17th straight win.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.