Rangers Rally, Beat Caps in Shootout

The New York Rangers were being blanked by a rookie goaltender when Marian Gaborik put the puck in the net — and didn't even know it.

Then, once the game reached overtime, the result was seemingly inevitable.

Artem Anisimov scored the decisive goal in a shootout, backup goalie Martin Biron had 22 saves, and the Rangers rallied to defeat the Washington Capitals 2-1 Monday night.


Each team tallied twice in the shootout before Anisimov ended the duel by beating Braden Holtby, who was making his seventh career start.

The last time the teams met, on Dec. 12 in New York, the Rangers rolled to a 7-0 win. In this one, the Capitals cranked up the defense and took a 1-0 lead in the second period on a goal by Matt Hendricks.

Gaborik tied it for the injury-riddled Rangers with 6:41 left in regulation. Gaborik was in front of the net when Brian Boyle took a shot, and the rebound bounced off Gaborik and past Holtby.

"I felt it hit me and then I turned away and saw the guys celebrating," Gaborik said. "I didn't have any idea. I guess it was one of the lucky ones."

That's how the Capitals felt, too.

"It was a lucky bounce, a fluke goal on their part," Hendricks said.

And, it ended Holtby's bid for his first NHL shutout.

"The only goal that beat him was a goal that even the Rangers didn't know they scored," Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said.

New York improved to 8-3 in games that extend beyond regulation. Washington lost its seventh consecutive overtime game and ninth in the last 10 despite outshooting the Rangers 6-1 in the extra five minutes.

"We haven't lost the overtime games because of lack of offense; it's because of poor defense," Boudreau said. "We talked about how we have to play in the overtime and we talked about it again on the bench. I thought we did a real good job of it."

Biron made several sensational saves in overtime, including one on a blast by Alex Ovechkin, who was held without a point.

"Tonight I thought he had two really good chances to score," Boudreau said. "Sometimes you get them. Some years they're all going in, and some years they're not going in. He's fighting for every goal he can get this year."

Holtby finished with 28 saves. In three games since his recall from Hershey of the American Hockey League last week, the 21-year-old has turned aside 77 of 80 shots.

In his first shootout, however, he fell for dekes by Wojtek Wolski and Mats Zuccarello before Anisimov scored the game-winner.

"NHL shootouts are a lot harder, obviously," Holtby said. "It's not something you get to practice because when they clean the ice it's a lot more slippery and you usually practice shootouts at the end of practice when it's all chewed up."

The focus was on defense during a scoreless first period in which the Rangers outshot Washington 7-5. Each team took only one shot over the first 11 minutes, and that included a Capitals power play in which Biron was not required to make a save.

At 1:27 of the second period, Hendricks scored from the left side of the net off a brilliant diagonal pass by Marcus Johansson. It was the seventh goal of the season for Hendricks, his second in two games.

New York scratched defenseman Dan Girardi, who missed his first game of the season with a rib cage injury. The Rangers are trying to keep pace in the Eastern Conference while coping with injuries to several key players, including leading scorer Brandon Dubinsky, who has a stress fracture in his left leg.

"We grind. We have confidence we can wear teams down," Boyle said.

"It's going to be like this for the next 2½ months," coach John Tortorella said. "We're happy we're grabbing some points here.

NOTES: The Rangers have held Ovechkin without a goal in four straight games. Ovechkin took four of Washington's 11 shots through the first two periods. ... New York's Brandon Prust played through a foot injury that occurred in Saturday's game in Atlanta. ... Washington fell to 20-0-2 when leading after two periods.

Rodgers Leads Pack to Super Bowl, Beat Bears 21-14

Aaron Rodgers didn't want to let go of the ball.

He took that final knee and savored the moment, basking in his biggest victory after the Green Bay Packers knocked off Chicago in the NFC championship game on Sunday.

"I actually have the ball from all three of our playoff wins this postseason," Rodgers said. "It's nice to be on the field there at the end. It's a special feeling. It's something you dream about as a kid."

For Cheeseheads, this is as good as it gets.

Not only did the Packers advance to the Super Bowl for the first time in 13 years, they did it at their rivals' expense. At Soldier Field, no less.

They knocked Jay Cutler out of the game with a knee injury, held Devin Hester in check and sent the Monsters of the Midway home.

Now, the Packers will head to Dallas to face Pittsburgh in another matchup between marquee franchises. Never before have these teams played in the Super Bowl.

And not since Brett Favre was leading the way have the Packers advanced this far, with the 1996 team winning it all and the 1997 team falling to Denver. Now, they're in the Super Bowl for the fifth time, aiming for their fourth victory and 13th championship in all, and they didn't necessarily need Rodgers to be at his best to get there on Sunday.

Even so, he took a Lambeau leap out of Favre's shadow and landed on the biggest stage of all.

He threw for 244 yards with a 55.4 rating and got picked off twice but delivered one of the biggest plays of the game after one of those interceptions - a touchdown-saving tackle on Brian Urlacher in the third with Green Bay up 14-0.

"He's as good as they come," Packers cornerback Charles Woodson said. "Regardless of the running game, when he has to bear most of the responsibilities without a running game and do a lot with his arm or legs, he's done that. He's done it all season. The guy has a steady hand, and he's a big-play guy. And he's done a great job for the team."

Greg Jennings had a big game for Green Bay, catching eight passes for 130 yards, and Sam Shields had two interceptions.

For Cutler, it was simply a rough day.

He was injured late in the first half and left after the opening drive of the third, completing just 6 of 14 passes for 80 yards.

Todd Collins replaced him and lasted just two series before getting lifted for third-stringer Caleb Hanie, and that's when things got interesting.

He led the Bears to two fourth-quarter touchdowns but also threw two interceptions, with B.J. Raji returning one for a touchdown and Shields picking off a pass with less than a minute left to seal the win.

"A lot of respect for Green Bay. They lost a lot of players, and for them to come out here and put on that kind of performance for the whole playoffs, I mean you have to give them your respect," Bears center Olin Kreutz said.

Green Bay had 15 players land on injured reserve this season, including several key members of the defense, but look at the Packers now.

They're one win away from the ultimate prize.

The fans at Soldier Field was ready to celebrate right from the start, going wild from the national anthem on, but Rodgers quickly quieted them.

Coming off a spectacular effort against Atlanta, he led the Packers on an 84-yard touchdown drive on the opening possession, running it in from the 1, and a 4-yard scoring run by James Starks early in the second made it 14-0. The Bears seemed to bite on every play-action fake in the early going, an uncharacteristic performance for a defense that ranked among the best, and the offense couldn't get anything going.

Cutler was out of sync, forcing passes. He never seemed comfortable even before his injury late in the first half.

"We missed a corner route that first series to Devin, missed a few things," Cutler said. "Our defense played a heck of a game and gave us a shot there at the end."

Even so, the Bears came up short and are headed home after a wild season.

It was hard to envision them making the playoffs after that brutal stretch early on, when they dropped three of four and headed into their off week at 4-3, but they regrouped. They committed to the run and settled on a starting offensive line, helping take some of the load off Cutler.

That led to a season-saving 7-1 run gave them the NFC North championship and an opening round bye in their first playoff appearance since the 2006 team made the Super Bowl.

"Right now it's hard to really say it was successful when you lose like that, when you're that close to being in the Super Bowl," tight end Greg Olsen said. "It's definitely a tough one to swallow here at home, I know our fans were really counting on this one, as were we. It's disappointing, but I think a week from now we can look back and say 'Hey, for the first year, the things that we have gone through, the offseason, the new coaches, the new offense, throw all that stuff together, and for a young team we made a lot of progress and let's come back next year and try to make it that next step."

Michael Douglas Tells Matt Lauer He's Got Cancer 'Beat' (Video)

Academy Award-winning actor Michael Douglas gave his first televised interview since being diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer to Matt Lauer this morning on the 'Today' show and revealed that he is in complete remission, saying, "The odds are, with the tumor gone and what I know about this particular type of cancer, I've got it beat."

The 'Wall Street' star did acknowledge that even though "the tumor is gone," he continues to be monitored closely by doctors. Asked by Lauer how he was feeling, Douglas responded, "I feel good, relieved. ... I have to get checked out on a monthly basis now to maintain. I guess there's not a total euphoria. I'll probably take a couple of months of getting checked out. But it's been a wild six-month ride." Watch Lauer's interview with Douglas after the jump.

Discussing the support he received from friends and family, Douglas told Lauer: "There's a new depth. You know, maybe it has to do because of everything life threatening. So all of a sudden the affection from my family, from my friends, and from my fans hit me at a much deeper level than I would have ever imagined before."

The star says he was always honest about his illness with his young children -- Dillon, 10, and Carys, 7 -- and with wife Catherine Zeta-Jones. "I told them about the cancer, you know, right from the beginning because I was going to be in- and out-patient," Douglas said. "But I told them it was hopeful. And I also took them down to a couple of radiation treatments. So they came into the room and they saw all the 'Star Wars' treatment going around."

Of his children and Zeta-Jones, Douglas added: "We've had a big celebration these last couple of days when I found out the tumor's gone."

Douglas also addressed the alarm photos of him looking frail caused late last year, opining that the pictures were a likely catalyst for his 94-year-old father's presence during his recovery. "My father, Kirk, he came back to New York. ... He came back for ten days and came up to the apartment every day to see me because I think that some of these photographs and, you know, who knows if they're touched up," Douglas told Lauer. "I was gaunt, you know? So I think he was even concerned. And, yeah, it was not a lot of fun. It's still not. They're there every day."

He lamented the paparazzi who trailed him during his illness, particularly the impact the photogs had on his children. "I resent the amount of imposition on our children, because it used to be at least they would try to keep them out of that, and they don't at all," Douglas said. "They were having ... there was sort of a macabre enjoyment out of sort of watching me go down there for a while, I felt, by the paparazzi."

Asked how cancer has changed his life, the actor said, "It's put a timeline on my life. I'm 66 now. You know, I'm fortunate. ... It's definitely a third act. And so you're a little more conscious of your time in how you choose to spend it."

"It gave me a really new appreciation of just how valuable, how precious good friends are and family," said the 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' star. "And it's not that I disregarded them before but there's a much deeper feeling. And I've talked to other cancer survivors about this, that -- that happens, that you just really, really appreciate what's important in life."

The actor is now focused squarely on his recovery and getting back to work. Douglas told Lauer that he lost 32 pounds during his cancer treatment and that he is now "eating like a pig" to regain the weight. Since completing chemotherapy and radiation treatment, the actor has already regained 12 lbs. and is working out as much as he can. "They want to keep the cardio down because they want me to put some more weight on. I lost a lot of muscle mass, so I'm going to work on that. I'm going to get my fingers ready for 'Liberace.'"

The actor is referring to director Steven Soderbergh's 'Liberace,' a biopic of the famed entertainer, which he is set to begin shooting in May or June. Before his cancer diagnosis, Douglas completed production on Soderbergh's next project, the action-thriller 'Haywire' (due in April).

Douglas' 'Today' interview is only the first half of his extended conversation with Lauer. The second part of Douglas' sit-down will air during the Jan. 23 edition of 'Dateline NBC.'