Quick Hitters
Hoffman’s goal helps Senators beat Penguins
OTTAWA, Ontario — Mike Hoffman scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period to give the Ottawa Senators a 2-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night and force a decisive Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Hoffman fired a slap shot through traffic off a pass from Fredrik Claesson to put the Senators ahead at 1:34 of the third.
Bobby Ryan also scored a rare power-play goal for Ottawa and Craig Anderson stopped 45 shots, including 22 in the second period.
Evgeni Malkin gave Pittsburgh, vying for its second straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final, the lead early in the second period and Matt Murray finished with 28 saves.
Game 7 is Thursday night in Pittsburgh, with the winner advancing to face the Nashville Predators for the championship.
The Senators managed to quickly forget a 7-0 loss two days earlier in Game 5 and extend their season for one more shoot at a return to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 10 years. and land one more shot at a first Stanley Cup final appearance in 10 years.
Ottawa was primarily looking for a return to structure in Game 6, beginning with a smoother start — which they got. Notable in a scoreless opening period were two effective penalty kills, one of which saw Viktor Stalberg get the best opportunity short-handed.
Conforto powers Harvey, Mets to rout of Padres
NEW YORK — Michael Conforto homered twice and had a careerhigh four RBIs, including three on two hits during the Mets’ biggest first inning in 13 years, and Matt Harvey won his first home start since getting suspended as New York routed the San Diego Padres 9-3 on Tuesday night.
Lucas Duda broke out of a slump with three hits and three RBIs, and manager Terry Collins earned his 500th victory with the Mets. His team got a leadoff homer and a two-run single from Conforto in a seven-run first against Jhoulys Chacin.
Given a huge early cushion, Harvey (3-3) labored through five innings to win for the first time since April 11 at Philadelphia. The embattled former ace was 0-3 in his previous six starts and got banned three days by the Mets after skipping a home game this month following a late night on the town.
Harvey apologized and went 0-1 in two outings on the team’s most recent road trip. There was light applause and little reaction from the crowd of 24,337 when he was introduced — only groans when Harvey had some trouble throwing strikes with a large lead.
Coming off an excellent performance against Milwaukee, Chacin (4-4) got only two outs in the shortest and worst of his 145 career starts over nine major league seasons. He gave up seven runs and eight hits.