KANSAS CITY - Sporting Kansas City returns to action for the first time in two weeks as the club gets set to take on the Montrea

KANSAS CITY - Sporting Kansas City returns to action for the first time in two weeks as the club gets set to take on the Montreal Impact at Sporting Park on Saturday. Andrew McCutchen Jersey . You can listen to the action on TSN Radio 690 Montreal beginning at 8:30pm et. Sportings last outing was a 0-0 draw with Real Salt Lake two weeks ago in a rematch of last seasons MLS Cup final, while Montreal is still searching for its first win of the 2014 campaign after playing to its third successive draw last weekend, a 1-1 stalemate with Chicago. Montreal lost its first three games to begin the season, but has rebounded to take three points from its last three matches. And although the team sits on the bottom of the Eastern Conference and has yet to record a win this season, goalkeeper Troy Perkins is encouraged by the last three results. "Everybody seems to see the negative, but the reality is weve gotten points in our last three games," Perkins said. "Were unbeaten, its still early in the season and were getting points, so we keep moving forward." In the Impacts last game, the club got a goal from Jack McInerney in the 43rd minute to take the lead on the Fire with McInerney scoring in his debut following a trade that sent Andrew Wenger to the Philadelphia Union in exchange for the 21-year-old. But McInerneys debut was spoiled by a second-half goal from Chicagos Quincy Amarikwa, forcing Montreal to settle for a point. The Impact wont be expected to pick up their first win on Saturday, but Perkins feels that the atmosphere in Kansas City will force his team to raise its level on play and that Saturdays contest will be a great test. "You go to places like that and it demands that you step up your game," said Perkins of Montreals trip to Kansas City. "As professional athletes, you want to prove yourself against the best. You have to play at a higher level. You want to be tested. Its a high energy environment and I love playing those types of games." Sporting will be pleased to have some extra rest ahead of the match, but it wont do any good for defender Ike Opara, who is likely to miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury. Opara made a career-high 18 appearances last season after joining Sporting from San Jose in midseason, but now head coach Peter Vermes will have to replace the 25-year-old along the back line. One player who Vermes can rely upon is goalkeeper Erik Kronberg, who is making the most of his first season as the starting netminder after spending eight years as the number two, first to Kevin Hartman and then Jimmy Nielsen. "It always is tough for players like that to be able to follow in somebody elses footsteps," Vermes said of Kronbergs emergence this season. "But I truly believe that hes starting to forge his own path, and I think people are starting to see that he has qualities that are important to our team as well. Hes going to continue to grow as a keeper, and thats what we need him to do." The 0-0 draw with RSL marked Kronbergs second clean sheet of the season in the five games he has started, while Montreal will hope to replicate the success it had against Sporting last term when the Impact won two of the three meetings between the sides. Pittsburgh Pirates Jerseys . Observant Muslims avoid food and liquids from dawn to dusk during Ramadan but can, and often do, skip it if travelling or doing hard physical labour. Some devout Muslim athletes choose to fast during training or competition, but it can create selection difficulties for the coaches in team sports. Dave Parker Jersey . In this space, I will be writing new and unique pieces about the team that you wont be able to find anywhere else. So naturally, in an attempt to come up with a fresh topic about the Ottawa Senators, I am going to start with a piece about their goaltending. http://www.pittsburghpiratesprostore.us/Gerrit-Cole-pirates-jersey/ . They are back to a game above .500 on the year and back to .500 on the road. It was their 10th extra time game of the year, and only the second one that did not got to a shootout.The Los Angeles Kings jumped out to a 3-0 first-period lead and the Chicago Blackhawks couldnt catch them, with the Kings taking a 5-2 decision in Game Four to take a 3-1 lead in the series. Kings D Jake Muzzin scored the first of two power play goals for the Kings. Playing more than 21 minutes per game in the playoffs, Muzzin now has 11 points, placing him third among defencemen in the postseason. Not bad for a guy who didnt hook on with an NHL club until the Kings signed him during his overage junior season in Sault Ste. Marie. Four years later, Muzzin is on the top defence pairing for a team closing in on the Western Conference title. Muzzin is paired with Drew Doughty, who also had a goal and an assist in Game Four (though his goal appeared to be deflected in by Dwight King) and leads defencemen with 14 points in the playoffs. Game Four was so well in hand for the Kings that they could limit Doughtys ice time; 23:55 was Doughtys lowest ice time since Game Two of the playoffs (after which he complained about his lack of ice time). For once, the Blackhawks didnt get burned by the line of Jeff Carter, Tanner Pearson and Tyler Toffoli, until Pearson scored into an empty net, though Pearson had a team-high seven shot attempts and tied Carter with a team-leading four shots on goal. The bad news for Chicago is that the Kings other top scorers got on track. Marian Gaborik scored a goal while Anze Kopitar and Justin Williams each picked up a couple of assists; Kopitar extending his playoff scoring lead with 22 points and Gaborik leads all playoff goal-scorers, with 10. In their ultimately fruitless attempt to come back, the Blackhawks chances were created by their power forwards. Marian Hossa, Bryan Bickell and Brandon Sadd had nine, eight and seven shot attempts, respectively, to lead the Bllackhawks. Roberto Clemente Jersey. Saad and Bickell scored Chicagos goals. Chicagos leaders, C Jonathan Toews and RW Patrick Kane, skated together for most of the game, as the Blackhawks tried to shake up lines and it didnt really work. While both assisted on Bickells third-period goal, Toews didnt register a shot on goal (though, immediately preceding Bickells goal, Doughty basically blocked a Toews shot in the crease to prevent a goal), the second time in the series Toews has been held without a shot on goal. The Blackhawks need their big guns to be firing, but they also need G Corey Crawford to perform better. After allowing four goals on 20 shots in Game Four, Crawford has stopped 69 of 82 shots (.841 SV%) in the last three games. The goals against arent all on Crawford, to be sure but, no matter how you slice it, .841 isnt good enough to win. Blackhawks C Michal Handzus played a game-low 4:28, not seeing the ice beyond six minutes into the second period. This isnt the first time in the playoffs that a team, on the verge of elimination, has looked like they were on the way out, and thats the situation in which the Blackhawks find themselves now. More than 90% of teams with a three-game-to-one lead in an NHL playoff series go on to win, so the Blackhawks have a steep hill to climb. But, they can look across the ice and take heart, knowing that the Kings had to overcome a three-games-to-none deficit in Round One against San Jose to get turned loose on this playoff run. Right now, the Kings look invincible, but hockey is a funny game sometimes and if the Blackhawks are better on home ice in Game Five, maybe they still have a way to dig out of this hole. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Cheap Heat Jerseys Cheap Bucks Jerseys Cheap Timberwolves Jerseys Cheap Pelicans Jerseys Cheap Knicks Jerseys Cheap Thunder Jerseys Cheap Magic Jerseys Cheap 76ers Jerseys Cheap Suns Jerseys Cheap Blazers Jerseys Cheap Sacramento Kings Jerseys Cheap Spurs Jerseys Cheap Raptors Jerseys Cheap Jazz Jerseys Cheap Wizards Jerseys ' ' '