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Clippers put on a show in pasting of Pistons

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DeAndre Jordan’s Big Dunk Ignites Clippers

DeAndre Jordan’s Big Dunk Ignites Clippers

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LOS ANGELES — Blake Griffin led seven players in double figures with 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting and the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Detroit Pistons 129-97 on Sunday night for their 10th win in 13 games.

Chris Paul had 20 points and 14 assists, and Caron Butler added 15 points before leaving in the third quarter with a left elbow contusion. Matt Barnes had 16 points, DeAndre Jordan added 13 points and seven rebounds, Willie Green 11 points and Chauncey Billups 10 points.

SportsNation: DeAndre Jordan’s dunk

SportsNation DeAndre Jordan’s dunk on Brandon Knight had NBA players buzzing on Twitter. But was it the dunk of the year?
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The Clippers set season highs for points scored and shooting percentage (62) while leading the entire game. Their old high of 125 points came in a win over the Lakers last month.

Jose Calderon was one of five Pistons in double figures with 18 points as they lost their fifth in a row overall, fourth straight to the Clippers, and fell to 0-11 on the road against Western Conference opponents.

Pistons coach Lawrence Frank missed his third straight game because of a family matter. Assistant Brian Hill, who is running the team, said he doesn’t expect Frank back for the remainder of the four-game trip.

The Clippers dominated the paint, 56-28, and in fast-break points, 22-10, while improving to 25-7 at home.

Paul picked up his fourth foul early in the fourth quarter and sat down to watch the second unit finish off the game.

Los Angeles opened the third period on a 12-1 run that increased its lead to 82-55. Griffin scored seven points, highlighted by his dunk off Paul’s alley-oop pass, Billups hit a 3-pointer and Butler scored on a driving dunk. The quarter ended with the Clippers outscoring Detroit 11-5 to take a 98-70 lead into the fourth quarter. Paul scored their final six points after setting up Jordan for another thunderous dunk.



More On The Clippers

For more news, notes and analysis of L.A., check out the Clippers Report. Blog

The Clippers led 70-52 at halftime, getting six 3-pointers in the second quarter to produce their highest-scoring half this season. Barnes hit their first three long-range baskets in a row, then Green, Butler and Paul chipped in.

The Clippers built their largest lead of the half at 26 points on a 28-12 run that included two monster dunks from the 6-foot-11 Jordan. His first one off Paul’s alley-oop pass left Brandon Knight — who is 8 inches shorter — flat on his back with a foul. That dunk quickly made Jordan a trending topic on Twitter.

Game notes



Clippers G Jamal Crawford missed his second straight game with a sore left ankle. He was shooting 60 percent and averaging 23.0 points in a four-game stretch before getting hurt. … The Clippers were without G Eric Bledsoe (sore left calf). … Hill said he speaks to Frank a couple times daily. “It’s his team so we talk about personnel,” Hill said. “He’s pretty much letting me run it the way I want to run it, which is pretty much the way he runs it.” … Paul is five points from reaching 10,000 in his career. … Detroit is 8-22 on the road. … Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said G Maalik Wayns was signed to a 10-day contract to provide an extra body at practice. Crawford and Bledsoe haven’t been practicing and F Trey Thompkins has been out all season. Wayns made his debut in the fourth quarter. … San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick attended the game wearing a camouflage backpack.

Copyright by STATS LLC and The Associated Press

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Tiger putts his way to four-stroke lead at Doral

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Tiger Woods is 50-54 on the PGA Tour when he has the 54-hole lead.

Fred Vuich/SI

Tiger Woods is 50-54 on the PGA Tour when he has the 54-hole lead.

DORAL, Fla. — On Sunday, make sure to set your clocks ahead an hour and your time machine back a decade or more. Tiger Woods looks primed for a monster year.

In January, he won at Torrey Pines for the 75th time as a pro. On Sunday, he’ll win at Doral for the fourth time. Next month at Augusta, he’ll win the Masters for the fifth time. Who’s going to beat him?

Well, a bunch of people could beat him — your Rory McIlroy, your Louis Oosthuizen, even your Phil Mickelson, looking trim and playing well. But the point is, as we have seen for three rounds at Doral, in the Cadillac Championship, Tiger is no longer in the business of beating himself. For the past four years, his main problem — golf-wise, that is — has been putting. There have been other problems: a swing in a state of flux, injuries, an ex-wife getting a big chunk of the fortune his golf made. But the main issue has been putting.

(Related Photos: Classic Pictures of Tiger Woods)

At Doral, on pretty flat, but wickedly fast, windswept greens, he has putted like a madman. He has putted like he used to putt, so decisively and so aggressively. He has made about six miles of putts here, and he looks great doing it.

OK, yes, reality check: Tiger Woods has not won the Doral event yet. But after stress-free rounds of 66, 65 and 67 on the par-72 course, once called the Blue Monster but now close to a desert-style pushover, he has a four-shot lead over Graeme McDowell and a five-shot advantage over Mickelson and Steve Stricker. Nobody who has a tee time after high noon tomorrow, when the South Florida trade winds will be at their strongest, is going to go crazy low.

On Sunday, for the first time all week, the winds will really blow, 70 will be a great score and grinding it out with low, smart shots — the old Woods specialty — will carry the day. McDowell and Woods are last off at 2:40 p.m. (Welcome to Daylight Savings Time. The golf season’s here. You can get in an emergency nine after work again.) Tiger’s not going for 75 tomorrow. When he won at Torrey Pines, he closed with a 72, playing about as poorly as he can play, frustrated by the pace of play and seemingly anxious to get his first win of 2013, especially after missing the cut in Abu Dhabi. Here he seems not to have a care in the world. At one point on Saturday, he was twirling his putter like a baton while walking to the green. He was singing that Carpenters hit from yesteryear, “Top of the World.”

Even when he lost a ball in a palm on 17 on Saturday, he didn’t look that perturbed, which was almost weird. Somebody handed him some binoculars, he identified the mark on his ball from terra firma, he played on as the rules require with a one-shot penalty and he grinded out a bogey. He came back on 18 with a fade tee shot, a hold-it-against the wind fade approach shot, a nothing-but-net birdie putt and a fist pump that was modest by his old standards but a pump nonetheless.

Tiger almost never loses with a 54-hole lead — he’s 50 for 54 when leading or co-leading — and he has never lost with a four-shot lead. Poor McDowell. He knows he’s not beating him.

In the interview room on Saturday night, McDowell was asked when he last saw Tiger playing this well.

“Kind of hard to answer these with him in the room,” McDowell said. He laughed, and Woods, standing at the back of the room, laughed too. “He was very solid today, very impressive the way he controlled his golf ball — it was like, `Wow.’ It was just really solidly good and impressive.”

(Related Photos: The 25 Best Public Golf Courses)

McDowell looked up, realizing the hole he was digging was getting deeper and deeper. He shrugged, shook his head, laughed and said, “OK, that’s enough of that.”

Good luck, Phil. Good luck, Stricks. NBC is depending in you. The network’s ratings are down, and they need a show.

Woods is thinking big. On Sunday he’ll be thinking about Doral. On Monday he’ll be thinking about Augusta. He was asked on Saturday night if he can be just as good as he was in 2000.

“I don’t want to be as good,” Woods said, dead-cold sober. “I want to be better.”

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B1G Finish: Still 4 teams alive for Big Ten title (Yahoo! Sports)

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ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — It began on the last day of December, when Michigan State showed up at Minnesota’s Williams Arena on a six-game winning streak and left with a 13-point loss.

Along the way, Tyler Griffey slipped past Indiana, Ben Brust stunned Michigan and Trey Burke stole the show against Michigan State.

Each week brought new drama, and now, one of the most exhilarating Big Ten races in recent memory will finally end – in a most appropriate way.

Indiana can clinch an outright championship on Sunday with a win at Michigan, but if the Wolverines prevail, as many as four teams could share the title.

It will be a fitting conclusion after the Big Ten’s heavyweights went through 2 1/2 months of emotional peaks and valleys to reach this last day.

”Do I reflect on how fortunate I am to coach at this level against these type of players? Yes. It’s an opportunity that every coach would like to have,” Michigan coach John Beilein said. ”I do try to take a moment in the games, and just look up at the top of the stadium and see how it’s packed to the last row.”

The Big Ten had three teams in the AP’s preseason top five. Now there are four in the top 14 – and 14th-ranked Ohio State has a chance to move up after beating No. 2 Indiana on Tuesday night.

Despite that loss, the Hoosiers still lead the league by a game over Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State. That means the Spartans and Buckeyes are both in an unusual situation: They need to hope Michigan wins.

”It’s my dream that this program is to the point where every year in the last week … we still have a mathematical chance to win a championship,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said after his team stayed in the race Thursday night with a win over Wisconsin. ”What happens, happens. I mean that because we had our chance to do it.”

If it weren’t for Wisconsin’s home loss to Purdue last weekend, an unbelievable five-way tie at the top would be a possibility – but the four teams still in the hunt can also look back on a slip-up or two that could have perhaps been avoided.

Michigan lost to Penn State late last month – it was the first conference win of the season for the Nittany Lions. Indiana let Griffey sneak in for a last-second layup in Illinois’ 74-72 win over the Hoosiers in early February.

Ohio State was blown out by that same Illinois team. Michigan State was in an early hole because of that 76-63 loss at Minnesota.

But all four teams were able to recover. Burke’s steal and dunk in the final minute lifted Michigan over Michigan State. The fearless point guard has carried the Wolverines at times, emerging as one of the front-runners for national player of the year. His main competition may be another Big Ten star – Indiana’s Victor Oladipo.

The race for Big Ten player of the year may be down to those two, but there’s little doubt about who made the shot of the year. Wisconsin trailed Michigan by three on Feb. 9 when Brust sent the game into overtime with a buzzer-beater from near midcourt. The Badgers went on to win.

Wisconsin fell out of the race Thursday, losing 58-43 at Michigan State. Now the Spartans (23-7, 12-5 Big Ten) need to hope Michigan beats Indiana on Sunday.

If that happens, No. 10 Michigan State can tie for the title by beating Northwestern in a game that starts at 6 p.m. local time.

Ohio State (22-7, 12-5) hosts Illinois at 12:30. Indiana and Michigan start at 4.

”I just want to play well on Sunday. That is where our focus is completely,” Ohio State coach Thad Matta said. ”We have one more game to play to end the regular season and that is the only thing that is on my mind and hopefully the only thing on our players’ minds.”

The seventh-ranked Wolverines (25-5, 12-5) rallied past Purdue on Wednesday night.

They now carry not only their own title hopes, but those of the rival Buckeyes and Spartans.

”It’s really weird. You never see those guys in green, or Ohio State, root for you,” Burke said. ”It was kind of like the situation we were in last year with Michigan State playing Ohio State.”

At this time last season, Michigan was pulling for Ohio State, which beat Michigan State to create a three-way tie for the Big Ten title between the Buckeyes, Spartans and Wolverines.

Ohio State already helped Michigan and Michigan State by beating Indiana on Tuesday. But the Hoosiers (25-5, 13-4) had already clinched at least a share of the championship, so they went ahead and cut down the nets at Assembly Hall afterward.

”We earned that right,” Indiana senior Jordan Hulls said. ”Obviously, we didn’t like to lose, but we earned that right to cut down the nets. We would have liked to have won but we couldn’t dwell on that.”

Now Indiana has a chance to celebrate its championship with a victory – or the regular season could end with multiple teams at the top. Either way, the stage is set for a thrilling finish after nobody was able to pull away from the pack.

”It doesn’t totally surprise me because there are so many good teams,” Izzo said. ”We were going to beat the daylights out of each other.”

—

AP Sports Writers Larry Lage, Michael Marot and Rusty Miller contributed to this report.

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Ferguson: Rooney not leaving United

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Fergie dismisses Rooney rumours

Ferguson dismisses Rooney rumours

Fergie dismisses Rooney rumours

Sir Alex Ferguson has said at his Friday morning press conference that Wayne Rooney will be at Manchester United next season.

Premier League

AssociatedRooney’s future has been the subject of conjecture this week

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Speculation over Rooney’s future at Old Trafford has been rife after he was not named in United’s starting XI for their Champions League exit against Real Madrid on Tuesday.

The striker, who has scored 11 goals in 20 Premier League games this season, was introduced as a second-half substitute following the dismissal of Nani that helped swing the game in Real’s favour.

ESPN understands the club would be willing to listen to offers for the player this summer, but Ferguson has insisted the England international will be plying his trade at Old Trafford in the 2013-14 campaign.

Ferguson said to the assembled press ahead of Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final with Chelsea: “The Wayne Rooney issue first? Or do you want to talk sense?

“The issue you’re all going on about in the papers is absolute rubbish. I’ve banned two papers from the press conference and they won’t get back in here until they apologise.

“There is absolutely no issue between Wayne Rooney and I. To suggest we don’t talk to each other on the training ground is absolute nonsense.

“He understood the reasons for not playing him and that was completely tactical. And I think I was right. We don’t always get it right but I think we did get it right.

“Danny Welbeck is the best player we have in terms of operating in a double role. We had to choke Xabi Alonso’s ability to control the game, which Danny did, and that took away Alonso’s control of the game and his ability to go further forward and be an attacking player. We don’t always get it right but we definitely did on Tuesday.

“Wayne will be here next year. You have my word on that. I have no issues at all with the player and he’ll be involved on Sunday.”

Rooney, who signed for United from Everton for £20 million in 2004, inked a new five-year contract with the Red Devils in 2010, after announcing that he intended to leave the club amid concerns over the strength of their squad.

Manchester City have previously been mooted as potential suitors for Rooney as have affluent Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain, with the striker’s wages said to be in the region of £200,000-a-week.

Ferguson, though, appears to have ruled out a summer exit, despite numerous reports that the club would consider offers in excess of £25 million.

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Nicholls three points, Makarov 41 saves as the Blades double up the Tigers

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SASKATOON – Josh Nicholls had two goals and an assist and Andrey Makarov stopped 41 shots as the Saskatoon Blades doubled up the visiting Medicine Hat Tigers 6-3 on Friday in Western Hockey League play.

Darren Dietz, Brett Stovin and Nick Zajac each had a goal and an assist for the Blades (42-22-4), who won for the first time since having their 18-game win streak snapped on Mar. 3rd by the Moose Jaw Warriors, and Brenden Walker added a single goal.

Boston Leier scored twice for the Tigers (34-31-3) and Curtis Valk had the other.

Cam Lanigan turned away 28-of-34 shots in a losing cause.

Both clubs went 1 for 4 on the power play.

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Ivanovic: Chelsea lack ‘fighting spirit’

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Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic has urged his team-mates to revive the fighting spirit that led them to Champions League glory last sesaon as they prepare to face Manchester United in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Sunday.

Branislav Ivanovic

AssociatedBranislav Ivanovic rues his late backpass that allowed Swansea to double their advantage

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Ivanovic, 29, admitted Chelsea’s 1-0 loss to Steaua Bucharest in the Europa League on Thursday summed up their fortunes this season but he believes the Blues should build on their disappointment rather than accepting it.

Chelsea will be aiming to keep their hopes of a fourth FA Cup trophy in seven years in tact at Old Trafford and the Serbia international is confident victory over United will be an important step to finishing the season in a positive fashion.

“We have to be honest with each other and admit that a lot of things are not going how we would like them to,” Ivanovic said. “We are not playing at the level we know we are capable of and that is becoming normal for us. So we have to change things very quickly.

“Time is running out for us if we want to finish the season at the highest level. And if we want to change things we are going to have to show more character. We need to play as a team and show some fighting spirit.

“We were in the same situation last year and finished the season well. Now we have to do the same thing. But it will need real strength to do that because from now on every game for us is going to be harder and harder.

“It’s not just the fighting spirit, though. There are a lot of things we need to change and that includes being honest with each other. We are 19 points behind Manchester United in the league and that gap means that we have not done well this season. That is something for everyone to think about.”

Sir Alex Ferguson’s side will be eager to bounce back from their Champions League departure at the hands of Real Madrid and Ivanovic believes upsets in Europe for both sides midweek will raise the stakes of their cup clash.

“It is always disappointing when you go out of the biggest competition in this way,” he said. “But I think that will make them more motivated and we have to be ready for that.

“This is a big test of our character and we need to react after the defeat in Bucharest. We have had two days less to prepare for this FA Cup match than United and it is always a very physical game. But we have to recover well and be ready for the challenge.

Chelsea could fall five points behind third-placed Tottenham if Spurs beat Liverpool on Sunday, making the last automatic Champions League qualifying spot a priority for interim manager Rafa Benitez.

“We have to treat every game like a cup final,” Ivanovic said. “Our supporters didn’t expect to be in this situation and we must do everything we can to win something for them this season. It is a question of attitude now.

“We know United will push us from the first minute and we have to be ready for every challenge. Now is not the time to look behind and try to work out what has gone wrong. We need to look forward and believe we can have a better end to the season.”

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Sources: NBA nears agreement to test for HGH

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Updated: March 8, 2013, 1:02 PM ET

By Henry Abbott | ESPN.com

The NBA and National Basketball Players Association are close to an agreement to test players’ blood for human growth hormone (HGH), according to sources with direct knowledge of the talks. Testing could begin as soon as the 2013-14 season.

The NBA has long had HGH on its list of banned substances, but has never tested for it, because doing so means collecting players’ blood, which the union has never allowed, and because there was little agreement about the test’s reliability.

But those concerns have eroded lately, sources say, with a frenzy of progress in talks between the league and union. A decisive factor: Major League Baseball and its respected union have agreed to blood tests for HGH, weakening the basketball union’s claims that the test was unreliable or that blood testing is too invasive.

Baseball recently led a breakthrough among major leagues by announcing an agreement to collect and analyze players’ blood, not just for HGH but for other substances, too.

Terms of the 2011 NBA collective bargaining agreement created a committee to hash out the particulars of HGH testing. Progress had been slow, until recently.

There has also been pressure from the World Anti-Doping Agency, which chided the NBA for “gaps” in their testing program last fall, as well as the U.S. Congress. In late 2012, Rep. Elijah Cummings called delaying HGH testing over concerns about the test “incredibly ridiculous.”

In a statement emailed to ESPN.com, Cummings elaborated: “According to the expert witnesses who testified at our hearing, there is consensus among the scientific community that HGH testing is safe and reliable. Since the NBA agreed last year to start HGH testing — and since professional basketball players already compete in the Olympics where they are subject to HGH testing — there is no reason to delay HGH testing for the NBA itself. My hope is that all our professional sports leagues implement HGH testing right away to set an example for millions of young athletes across the country who look up to them.”

With the two sides agreeing in principle, over the last few months, to test players’ blood for HGH, the more talks have been about the conditions under which blood specimens could be collected.

At the moment, NBA players are subject to six urine tests a year, two of which occur in the offseason. It is unknown how many blood tests will be added to the schedule, if that blood will be examined for anything beyond HGH, and if the blood tests will be in addition to, or instead of, urine tests.

A further complication had been that the union itself is in disarray, with longtime executive director Billy Hunter suspended for misconduct and subject to federal investigation. Staff attorney Ron Klempner is directing the union on an interim basis. Sources insist HGH testing can proceed regardless, and the union can and will implement HGH tests before resolving its leadership issues.

Those with knowledge of the talks say it is a foregone conclusion that HGH tests are coming, as soon as next season.

NBA commissioner David Stern predicted as much at the All-Star Game in Houston in February, saying “we have a comprehensive drug testing program that has a long list, probably a hundred or so, I’m not even sure the number, of drugs that are prohibited, including HGH, subject to an agreement of the validity of an appropriate testing protocol. And we expect that to happen, we really do, before the start of next season.”

Until recently, none of the major north American sports — MLB, the National Football League, the National Hockey League and the NBA — made blood tests a major part of their anti-doping programs. This was in no small part in response to privacy concerns raised by those sports’ unions. Athletes are not unionized in international sports like track and field and cycling where blood testing is common, and even extends to comprehensive measures like biological passports, which have been lauded by anti-doping experts.

Baseball recently led a breakthrough among major leagues by announcing an agreement to collect and analyze players’ blood, not just for HGH but for other substances, too, including with biological passports.

Stern acknowledged last month that basketball lagged behind baseball in that regard.

“There will always be some kind of leap frogging there, as there was in 1983 which we were the first league to have an anti-drug program and dealt with a variety of things. So it’s always subject to be improved,” he said. “But together with our Players’ Association, which I think has taken a leadership role here, I’m sure we will continue to improve it.”

Henry Abbott | email

TrueHoop, NBA

  • Senior writer for ESPN.com
  • Founder of TrueHoop blog and network
  • Began writing about NBA for magazines in 1999

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McCarron played last 6 games with injured ribs

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Updated: March 8, 2013, 10:44 AM ET

By Chris Low | ESPN.com

Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback AJ McCarron played the final six games of this year’s national championship season with injured ribs.

Low: Bama Chasing More Than History

LowThe Crimson Tide have pocketed three of the past four national championships, including the past two, and are dead-set on winning a few more, Chris Low writes. Blog

McCarron, who finished the season with 30 touchdown passes and only three interceptions in guiding the Crimson Tide to their second straight national title, played through significant pain following an Oct. 27 game against Mississippi State. He said he was injured on a sack and had to limit his throwing in practice thereafter.

“I had three ribs come out of place,” McCarron told ESPN.com earlier this week. “They kept popping in and out of place, the one at the top, and it was just a nagging pain the whole time.

“I couldn’t throw much during the week for a long time, really almost up to the bowl game. I was hurting really bad through the week, and it just took a long time for those ribs to heal.”

The five-week layoff leading up to the Tide’s 42-14 win over Notre Dame in the Discover BCS National Championship Game allowed McCarron to move closer to 100 percent. He still ended up throwing nine touchdown passes in his last three games, including four against the Fighting Irish.

“When it first happened, I still tried to throw some so our timing wouldn’t fall off that much in our passing game,” McCarron said. “That’s one of the things that kind of put a damper on our passing game a little. I was injured, and we had so many receivers injured, so it was hard to do a whole lot in practice. That kind of threw us off a little, but we still kept it going.”

McCarron, who’s 25-2 as a starter, did not miss any meaningful snaps because of the injury. He played one more play after getting hurt against Mississippi State and then sat out the fourth quarter. The Crimson Tide were ahead 24-0 at the time and won 38-7.

“It’s part of being a leader,” McCarron said. “We had a lot of guys gutting it out at that point in the season. We all had our eyes on the same thing.”

Chris Low | email

College Football

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  • Joined ESPN.com in 2007
  • Wrote for The (Nashville) Tennessean

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Oilers F Hemsky day-to-day with foot injury

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The Edmonton Oilers could be without the services of forward Ales Hemsky when they visit the Nashville Predators Friday night.

Hemsky hurt his right foot blocking a shot from Red Wings defenceman Jakub Kindl midway through the second period of Thursday’s 3-0 loss to Detroit.

He skated to the dressing room and didn’t return.

“He’s been x-rayed, it’s not broken it’s bruised so we’re probably dealing with a day-to-day situation,” head coach Ralph Krueger said.

The 29-year-old Hemsky has eight goals and five assists for 13 points through 23 games this season.

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Seguin scores twice and Bruins bounce back with 4-2 win over Maple Leafs

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BOSTON – A two-goal lead was down to one, and suddenly the Boston Bruins were trying to avoid another third-period collapse.

“At least we didn’t sit back; we didn’t panic; our guys responded well,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said Thursday night after Boston snapped a two-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“When they made it 3-2 … we looked more like the team we were before than we did the last couple of games.”

Tyler Seguin had two goals and an assist and Patrice Bergeron had one of each as the Bruins recovered from back-to-back blown leads to beat Toronto and hold onto the No. 2 point total in the Eastern Conference.

David Krejci also scored for Boston, Brad Marchand had a pair of assists and Anton Khudobin stopped 25 shots.

“Today was a great third period,” said Khudobin, who was subbing for starter Tuukka Rask while the Bruins play 20 games in 36 days.

“We learned from (the previous) two games. Maybe we didn’t have good third period or second period, but we’ll learn. Today was a great third period. Guys played awesome.”

With the win, the Bruins moved three points ahead of Toronto in the Northeast Division while remaining one point behind first-place Montreal.

Nazem Kadri and Jay McClement scored for the Leafs, and Ben Scrivens made 21 saves for Toronto, which had won three in a row.

“It’s about good habits,” said Clarke MacArthur, who assisted on Kadri’s sixth goal in four games. “We can take a lot of good things out of the game. Obviously those two points would have been huge for us, but we have to take the good positive things we did and take that into Pittsburgh.”

The Bruins lost two in a row for the first time since January, blowing a 3-2 lead to the first-place Montreal Canadiens and a 3-0 advantage to the last-place Washington Capitals. Boston opened a 3-1 when Seguin and Krejci scored in the second period, but McClement made it a one-goal game with 5:08 left.

“You can’t live in the past,” Julien said. “I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. When you lose two games the way we did, I knew it was going to be tough.

“There’s peaks and valleys along the way and we’re going through it like any other team,” he said, “except for Chicago.”

The Leafs, who had won three in a row, pulled their goalie in the final minutes, but they struggled to set up in the offensive zone and Seguin had an empty-netter with 15 seconds left.

Boston made it 1-0 with 53 seconds left in the first period when Marchand fought the puck out from the boards near the blue line and Seguin came by and picked it up. He went straight to the goal, and Bergeron knocked in the rebound.

Kadri and Clarke MacArthur converted on a 2-on-1 against Dennis Seidenberg to tie it early in the second period. Boston took the lead again when three guys committed to Marchand along the boards and the puck came out to the middle, where Seguin scored on a wrist shot and then had to jump over MacArthur as he dove to try to block the shot.

Krejci made it 3-1 late in the second. That’s how it stayed until Mikhail Grabovski skated out from behind the net and took a shot that was deflected in by McClement to make it 3-2.

Notes: The Bruins waived Chris Bourque, the son of Hall of Famer Ray Bourque, on Thursday. He had one goal and three assists in 18 games this season. … Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt dropped a ceremonial first puck in honor of his 95th birthday. … Toronto’s Colton Orr played in his 400th NHL game. … Kadri has 11 points in Toronto’s past seven games.

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