That’s a generational sports town

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CHICAGO (AP) Jonathan Toews had a goal and two assists and the Chicago Blackhawks ripped the Washington Capitals 7-1 on Saturday night to end an eight-game losing streak.Patrick Kane Aaron Ekblad Jersey , Brandon Saad and Ryan Hartman each added a goal and an assist in a 44-shot attack that took advantage of Washington breakdowns and powered Chicago to its first win since Jan. 30 at Nashville. Nick Schmaltz, Artem Anisimov and rookie Alex DeBrincat also scored to help the Blackhawks snap a seven-game slide at home before season-high crowd of 22,066 at the United Center.Tom Wilson scored for the Capitals, whose first-place lead in the Metropolitan Division over Pittsburgh slipped to one point.Article continues below ...Chicago’s Anton Forsberg stopped 19 shots. Washington’s Braden Holtby allowed six goals on 33 shots through two periods. Philipp Grubauer took over in goal to start the third and gave up a goal on 11 shots.Washington’s Barry Trotz coached his 1,500th NHL game. He joined four others in reaching that mark, including Chicago’s Joel Queneville.DUCKS 3, WILD 2, SOST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Nick Ritchie scored in the 11th round of a shootout and John Gibson stopped the final seven shooters in Anaheim’s victory over Minnesota.After the teams combined for 13 straight misses, Ritchie beat Devan Dubnyk.Ryan Getzlaff and Ondrej Kase also scored in the shootout after Kase and Corey Perry scored in regulation. Gibson made 36 saves through overtime to help the Ducks, 4-1-1 in their past six, move into a tie with the Wild for the second wild-card slot in the Western Conference.Mikko Koivu and Jason Zucker scored in regulation for Minnesota, Nino Niederreiter and Zach Parise connected in the shootout, and Dubnyk made 28 saves. The Wild are 9-3-3 in their past 15.GOLDEN KNIGHTS 6, CANADIENS 3LAS VEGAS (AP) – Reilly Smith had two goals and an assist in Vegas’ victory over Montreal.Brad Hunt, Tomas Nosek, Ryan Carpenter, Nate Schmidt also scored for Vegas, and Jonathan Marchessault had three assists. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 30 shots, including a highlight-reel glove save on Charles Hudon on a breakaway in the third period, to improve to 19-6-2.Hudon, Nikita Scherbak and Jonathan Drouin scored for Montreal. Antti Niemi started and gave up three goals on six shots before being replaced by Carey Price midway through the first period.PENGUINS 5, MAPLE LEAFS 3PITTSBURGH (AP) – Olli Maatta scored the tiebreaking goal in the third period to lift Pittsburgh past Toronto.Evgeni Malkin had a goal and two assists to top 900 points for his career, becoming the sixth Russian-born and the fourth player in team history to reach the milestone.Bryan Rust, Zach Aston-Reese and Carl Hagelin also scored, and Matt Murray made 29 saves. The Penguinshave won 11 straight at home and four in a row overall.Patrick Marleau Aleksander Barkov Jersey , Connor Brown and Tyler Bozak scored for the Maple Leafs. They had won five in a row.COYOTES 1, OILERS 0GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) – Antti Raanta made 39 saves for his first shutout of the season and Arizona won its fourth straight, scoring on its first shot in a victory over Edmonton.Raanta had his ninth career shutout, helping the Coyotes earn points for the fifth time in six games.Cam Talbot made 31 saves for Edmonton. The Oilers have lost six in a row.The Coyotes scored when Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s shot caromed off teammate Christian Dvorak’s skate at 3:26 of the first period.DEVILS 4, LIGHTNING 3TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Eddie Lack made 48 saves and New Jersey beat Tampa Bay.Making his third appearance as the backup since being recalled from Binghamton of the AHL on Feb. 4, Lack made a terrific glove save on Brayden Point’s in-close shot midway through the second.Ben Lovejoy, Nico Hischier, Pavel Zacha and Miles Wood scored for the Devils. Taylor Hall had an assist and has a point in each of the last 17 games he has played in. Chris Kunitz, Point and Steven Stamkos scored for Tampa Bay.SENATORS 6, RANGERS 3OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) – Derick Brassard had a goal and two assists to help Ottawa beat New York.Matt Duchene and Mark Stone each had a goal and an assist, Johnny Oduya, Magnus Paajarvi and Thomas Chabot also scored, and Craig Anderson made 35 saves.Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist allowed five goals on 27 shots and was replaced by Brandon Halverson with 13 minutes to play. Halverson stopped five of six shots in his NHL debut. Michael Grabner had two goals, and Mika Zibanejad also scored for the Rangers. They’ve lost three straight.RED WINGS 3, PREDATORS 1NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Petr Mrazek stopped 30 shots to remain unbeaten against Nashville, and Detroit defenseman Luke Witkowski scored his first NHL goal.Mrazek improved to 6-0-0 in his career against the Predators, coming within minutes of his second shutout against them. Gustav Nyquist and Darren Helm also scored for the Red Wings in their seventh straight victory over Nashville. Craig Smith scored for the Predators.KINGS 4, SABRES 2BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – Anze Kopitar and rookie Michael Amadio each scored twice and Los Angeles beat Buffalo to snap a three-game skid.Jonathan Quick stopped 33 shots and Dustin Brown had two assists in a game where the Kings scored on three consecutive shots to build a 4-0 lead in the second period.Sabres defensemen Marco Scandella and Rasmus Ristolainen scored third-period goals.CANUCKS 6, BRUINS 1VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) – Loui Eriksson scored his second goal of the night late in the third period and Anders Nilsson stopped 44 shots to lead Vancouver to just its second win in eight games.Daniel Sedin, Sven Baertschi Evgenii Dadonov Jersey Kids , Nic Dowd and Bo Horvat also scored for Vancouver, which scored four goals in the first to take control.Vancouver was outshot 45-23 but got some timely saves from Nilsson, who registered his first win in 11 appearances dating back to Nov. 30.Tim Schaller scored in the third period for the Bruins, who lost in regulation for just the third time in 27 games. Tuukka Rask started and gave up four goals on eight shots in the first period. Anton Khudobin came on to start the second and finished with 13 saves.PANTHERS 6, FLAMES 3CALGARY, Alberta (AP) – Mike Matheson scored twice, Aleksander Barkov had a goal and two assists, and Florida won in goalie Roberto Luongo’s return after 2 1/2 months.Luongo stopped 30 shots in his first appearance since a groin injury on Dec. 4, and picked up his first win since Nov. 27.Evgenii Dadonov and Vincent Trocheck each had a goal and an assist, and Jared McCann also scored to help the Panthers get their fifth straight road win. Florida has won seven of its last eight overall to pull six points behind the New York Islanders for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference.Dougie Hamilton scored three goals for his first career hat trick for the Flames, who are 0-3-3 in their last six at home. David Rittich started and gave up four goals on 15 shots before he was pulled early in the second period. Jon Gillies came on and stopped 13 of the 15 shots he faced. WASHINGTON (AP) Nicklas Backstrom dreamed about the road less traveled.Driving down Constitution Avenue on his way to each home game since his NHL debut in 2007, he imagined the street lined with overjoyed Washington Capitals fans.”It always popped up in my head that one time we’re going to have a parade here, and finally that day is here,” Backstrom said.It all becomes reality Tuesday when Backstrom and the Stanley Cup-champion Capitals give the city its first parade for a major pro sports team since the NFL’s Redskins in 1992. The parade is 26 years in the making for Washington sports fans who endured long, lean years of heartbreak.”I don’t think anyone doubted what this city would do,” longtime Nationals infielder Ryan Zimmerman said. ”It’s just a matter of getting there and having the ability to do it. They definitely held up their end of the bargain.”Tens of thousands gathered for viewing parties of road playoff games on the way to the Capitals’ first championship since beginning play in 1974. They camped out on the streets to watch on giant video screens – the kinds of scenes more germane to presidential inaugurations in this town than sporting events.”I thought it was really cool when we were even at home and everyone was outside and going nuts and they would show that right after we would score a goal,” defenseman John Carlson said. ”I think that was probably one of the coolest moments of the playoffs for me and just seeing the support. … I think we deserve it, and so do the fans.”It has been a long time coming. Since the Redskins won the Super Bowl in January 1992, the 1998 Capitals were the only Washington team in the NHL, NBA, NFL or Major League Baseball to reach a league semifinal until this spring, a drought of 74 combined seasons without a championship.When the Capitals took the Cup into the Nationals’ clubhouse on Saturday, coach Barry Trotz wanted players to know: ”There’s no curse or anything. It’s all gone.” All they had to do to know that was look around the past two months to see the doubt being chipped away.Nationals manager Davey Martinez, who texted with Trotz throughout the run, got his first real taste of Washington sports in the playoffs with the Chicago Cubs last year when he came out of the dugout seeing 50,000 fans in red and couldn’t hear himself think because it was so loud.”Right then and there I said http://www.officialhockeypanthersshop.com/authentic-adidas-james-reimer-jersey , `Hey, these people, they’re in, they love it,”’ Martinez recalled. ”This is exciting. And the city then rallied this year around the Caps. I get it. It was awesome. It was good for the city. Good for us. I know our boys were all in, they were excited about everything. I told them yesterday, `Let’s just keep it rolling. The city’s all-in.”’Washington isn’t a city accustomed to being all-in because of the scars of so many playoff failures over the years. Longtime Capitals season-ticket holder Jimmy Patterson said fans became reluctant to get together to watch games because the mood at the end of the night wasn’t something anyone wanted to endure in a group setting.That’s part of what made the public gatherings for Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final and throughout the Stanley Cup Final so remarkable. Exorcising franchise-long demons by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round seemed to free fans to actually enjoy themselves.”It showed what they were capable of and shows if you get to that level, they’re going to match it or even step it up a little bit more than the actual players,” Zimmerman said.Fans celebrating the Capitals beating the Penguins led ESPN’s Michael Wilbon – a former Washington Post columnist – to call D.C. a ”minor league sports town.” It’s not the first knock on Washington, though 14 years of playing baseball in the city has given Zimmerman some clarity on explaining that it’s not Boston, Chicago, New York or Philadelphia, and he doesn’t think it has to be.”This is such an interesting city because not many people are from here, so it’s hard to be a Boston or a Chicago,” Zimmerman said. ”That’s a generational sports town. So it’s nothing against (Washington). They shouldn’t be like that. They have no reason to be like that.”A lot of these people move here for work in their early to mid-20s or come here even later than that and they adopt a team. This is what happens nowadays: Everyone compares everything. Just let it be. Let it be what it is. We have great fans and obviously if you make the playoffs and get to a Stanley Cup finals, you have really great fans just like any city would.”Thousands of fans are expected to watch the parade, from 17th to 7th on Constitution. Trotz has been thinking about something like this since he arrived in 2014.”You start thinking about, `Well, what would it mean?’ and then you think about a possible parade on one of the most famous streets in all the world, really, and it’s sort of now coming into play,” Trotz said. ”It’s going to come true.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals—
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