Trade deadline pickup Jack Roslovic sealed it with an empty-netter with 51 seconds left, and the Rangers will next face either the Carolina Hurricanes or crosstown-rival New York Islanders with a spot in the Eastern Conference final at stake. Carolina leads that series 3-1.

They’ll get the benefit of some extra rest thanks to Panarin’s goal with 16:39 left in regulation, 11 seconds after T.J. Oshie was penalized for high-sticking Vincent Trocheck, which helped them avoid overtime or this series returning to Madison Square Garden for a Game 5 on Wednesday. The Presidents’ Trophy winners for having the best regular season in the NHL needed just four to vanquish the Capitals and become the first team to advance this spring.

New York moves on thanks to another dominant performance from Trocheck, who was the best player on the ice all series. Trocheck long before drawing the crucial penalty scored on the power play and broke up a scoring chance by Alex Ovechkin, who was held off the scoresheet entirely through four games — the first time that has happened in a single postseason in the Capitals captain’s 15 trips.

But he was not Washington’s only problem, and part of the lack of offense was Shesterkin, who several times sparked chants of “Igor! Igor!” from the many Rangers fans in attendance. He turned aside Dylan Strome 14 seconds after Kaapo Kakko scored in the first minute to put them ahead and later made back-to-back saves on Tom Wilson’s point-blank chances on the doorstep.

Trocheck, Shesterkin and MVP candidate Panarin leading a victory is nothing new, but Kakko contributing made him the 11th New York player to score a goal in the series. That came after Nick Jensen turned the puck over on his first shift back from a two-week injury absence, and Kakko beat Charlie Lindgren for a goal that could boost his confidence after a rough regular season.

Lindgren, who has not lacked self-belief, couldn’t again play the hero despite stopping 19 of the 22 shots he faced. Youngsters Martin Fehervary and Hendrix Lapierre scored for Washington, a significant underdog now able to take solace in making the playoffs as a building block for the future.

By Stephen Whyno

The three-time WNBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist announced on social media that her career was over after 16 seasons.

“The competitor in me always wants 1 more, but it’s time,” Parker wrote in an Instagram post. “My HEART & body knew, but I needed to give my mind time to accept it.”

Parker, 38, had told The Associated Press in November she wanted to play another season if she could get healthy from a foot injury that kept her off the court last season. But she cautioned that she didn’t want to “cheat the game,” or herself, and expressed the same in announcing her retirement ahead of the Las Vegas Aces’ attempt to win a third title in a row. Parker has had 10 surgeries over her career.

“I promised I’d never cheat the game & that I’d leave it in a better place than I came into it. … I always wanted to walk off the court with no parade or tour, just privately with the ones I love,” she wrote. “What now was to be my last game, I walked off the court with my daughter. I ended the journey just as I started it, with her.”

Parker played her first 13 seasons in the league with the Los Angeles Sparks, establishing her dominance early as a No. 1 pick who won Rookie of the Year and league MVP in the same season. Parker was the only WNBA player to accomplish that feat, averaging 18.5 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists while helping the Sparks to a 10-win improvement in 2008.

Parker earned her second MVP award in 2013 and won her first title in 2016 with the Sparks. She’d go on to win a second title with the Chicago Sky in 2021 and a third with the Las Vegas Aces last season.

“It’s tough, it’s bittersweet for myself because I would have loved to have her with us this year. On the other hand I know exactly what it feels like when it’s time, it’s time. The body tells you. It’s not what your mind or your heart is saying. It’s your body,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “She changed the game. She changed what it meant to be a positional basketball player. She played all positions. She’s the one when you talk about people that are now playing and coming up, they practiced Candace Parker’s moves.”

She’s the only player in league history to win a championship with three different teams.

“The memories Candace Parker created for a generation of women’s basketball fans will remain ingrained in our collective conscience forever, but she has given so much more to the game beyond her accolades and statistics,” the Aces said in a statement. “As a teammate and mentor, a mother and wife, a baller, broadcaster and businesswoman she has inspired countless young people, both boys and girls, to chase and achieve their dreams.”

Parker played for the late Pat Summitt’s last two national championship teams at Tennessee in 2007 and 2008. She then left with one year of eligibility remaining.

She won Olympic gold medals in 2008 and 2012 before shockingly being left off the 2016 team.

“I think obviously Candace has had an amazing career. I’m a little bit sad about it because you love going up against her, the legend that she is,” Liberty star Breanna Stewart said. “What she has done on and off the court has been amazing for our league. Appreciate all she’s done to help me get to where I am. We’ll definitely miss her this season.”

Liberty coach Sandy Brondello coached Parker overseas in Russia for a few years during the winter.

“She’s a trailblazer. Just a wonderful human being and what she’s done for this sport,” Brondello said. “Hopefully it’s celebrated. I’ve got a lot of respect for her. Our kids grew up together when I was coaching in Russia. It’s kind of sad. Everyone knows when it’s the right time.”

Parker began working in broadcasting during her playing career. She has worked as an analyst for the NCAA Tournament with CBS Sports and the NBA for TNT and NBA TV.

She had surgery on her foot in July 2023 and told the AP it still pained her at the end of last year.

“This offseason hasn’t been fun on a foot that isn’t cooperating,” she wrote in her post Sunday. “My mission in life, like Pat Summitt always said, is to ‘chase people and passions and you will never fail.’ Being a wife & mom still remains priority #1 & I’ve learned that time flies, so I plan to enjoy my family to the fullest!”

By Doug Feinberg

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital early Monday after a two-week raid that engulfed the facility and surrounding districts in fighting. Footage showed widespread devastation, with the facility’s main buildings reduced to burned-out husks.

The military has described the raid on Shifa Hospital as a major battlefield victory in the nearly six-month war and said its troops killed 200 fighters in the operation, though the claim they were all fighters could not be confirmed.

But the raid came at a time of mounting frustration in Israel, with tens of thousands protesting Sunday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanding that he do more to bring home dozens of hostages held in Gaza. It was the largest anti-government demonstration since the start of the war.

Elsewhere, Syrian state media reported that an Israeli airstrike destroyed the consular section of Iran’s embassy in Damascus, killing or wounding everyone inside.

The Iranian Arabic-language state television Al-Alam and pan-Arab television station Al-Mayadeen, which has reporters in Syria, said the strike killed Iranian military adviser Gen. Ali Reza Zahdi, who led the elite Quds Force in Lebanon and Syria until 2016.

In other developments, Netanyahu said he would shut down satellite broadcaster Al Jazerra immediately. Netanyahu vowed to close the “terror channel” after parliament passed a law Monday clearing the way for the country to halt the Qatari-owned channel from broadcasting from Israel.

Netanyahu accused Al Jazeera of harming Israeli security, participating in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and inciting violence against Israel. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Meanwhile, a second shipment of food aid arrived by sea in the latest test of a new maritime route from the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. One of the three boats could be seen off the coast, and Cyprus’ foreign minister said they had received permission to unload. The precise mechanism of delivery was not yet clear.

The fighting around Shifa showed that Hamas can still put up resistance even in one of the hardest-hit areas. Israel said it had largely dismantled Hamas in northern Gaza and withdrew thousands of troops late last year.

The raid also gutted a hospital that had once been the heart of Gaza’s health system but which doctors and staff had struggled to get even partially operating again after a previous Israeli assault in November.

Israel said it launched the latest raid on Shifa because senior Hamas operatives had regrouped there and were planning attacks. It identified six officials from Hamas’ military wing it said were killed inside the hospital during the raid. It also said it seized weapons and valuable intelligence.

The raid triggered days of heavy fighting for blocks around Shifa, with witnesses reporting airstrikes, the shelling of homes and troops going house to house to force residents to leave.

After the troops withdrew, hundreds of Palestinians returned to search for lost loved ones or examine the damage.

Among the dead were Ahmed Maqadma and his mother — both doctors at Shifa — and his cousin, said Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a Palestinian-British doctor who volunteered at Shifa and other hospitals during the first months of the war before returning to Britain.

The fate of the three had been unknown since they talked by phone with family as they tried to leave Shifa nearly a week ago and the line suddenly went dead. On Monday, relatives found their bodies with gunshot wounds about a block from the hospital, said Abu Sitta, who is in touch with the family.

Bassel al-Hilou said the bodies of seven of his relatives were found in the wreckage of a house near Shifa where they had been sheltering when it was demolished by a strike.

“There was a massacre in my uncle’s house,” he told The Associated Press. “The situation was indescribable.”

Mohammed Mahdi, who was among those who returned to the area, described a scene of “total destruction.” He said several buildings had been burned down and that he counted six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard, though it was not clear when they died.

Video footage circulating online showed the main buildings of Shifa charred and heavily damaged. Several witnesses said army bulldozers had plowed up a mass grave that had been dug in November in Shifa’s courtyard, leaving many bodies exposed.

At least 21 patients died during the raid, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted late Sunday on X, formerly Twitter.

He said over a hundred patients were still inside the compound during the operation, including four children, 28 critical patients and many who suffered from infected wounds and dehydration.

The military denied that its forces harmed any civilians inside the compound. Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes and has raided many hospitals across the territory.

Critics accuse the army of recklessly endangering civilians and of decimating a health sector already overwhelmed with wounded.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group established their main northern headquarters inside the hospital. He described days of close-quarters fighting and blamed Hamas for the destruction, saying some fighters barricaded themselves inside hospital wards while others launched mortar rounds at the compound.

Hagari said the troops arrested some 900 suspected fighters during the raid, including more than 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, and seized over $3 million in different currencies, as well as weapons.

He said the army evacuated more than 200 of the estimated 300 to 350 patients and delivered food, water and medical supplies to the rest. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the raid, the military said.

The military previously raided Shifa in November, after saying Hamas maintained an elaborate command and control center inside and beneath the compound. It revealed a tunnel running beneath the hospital that led to a few rooms, as well as weapons it said it had confiscated from inside medical buildings, but nothing on the scale of what it had alleged prior to that raid.

The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.

Israel responded with an air, land and sea offensive that has killed at least 32,845 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The Israeli military blames the civilian toll on Palestinian fighters because they fight in dense residential areas.

The war has displaced most of the territory’s population and driven a third of its residents to the brink of famine. Northern Gaza, where Shifa is located, has suffered vast destruction and has been largely isolated since October, leading to widespread hunger.

The aid ships that arrived Monday carried some 400 tons of food and supplies in a shipment organized by the United Arab Emirates and the World Central Kitchen, the charity founded by celebrity chef José Andrés. Last month a ship delivered 200 tons of aid in a pilot run.

Netanyahu has vowed to keep up the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and all hostages are freed. He says Israel will soon expand ground operations to the southern city of Rafah, where some 1.4 million people — more than half of Gaza’s population — have sought refuge.

But he faces mounting pressure from Israelis who blame him for the security failures of Oct. 7 and from some families of the hostages who blame him for the failure to reach a deal despite several weeks of talks mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt. Allied countries, including main backer the United States, have warned him against an invasion of Rafah.

Hamas and other militants are still believed to be holding some 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others, after freeing most of the rest during a cease-fire last November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war