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Lindsey Vonn shows reporters and photographers the area where her shin is bruised at Wednesday’s media conference. (Marcio Sanchez/Associated Press)

For the last several months, when Lindsey Vonn talked about the 2010 Winter Olympics, she was pleased that her strongest events were bunched in the early part of the schedule.

The super combined, which plays to her strengths, was scheduled two days after the opening ceremony. The downhill, her best event, was three days after that, and the super-G, another strong suit, was scheduled for three days after the downhill.

That gave her three bona-fide chances at a gold medal in the first half of the competition, and Vonn considered herself lucky. She would not have to wait long to chase a dream that has been a lifetime in waiting.

With the Olympic competition now days away, Vonn would like a small more time after all. On Wednesday, Vonn offered a courageous if dire view of an injury to her right shin that she sustained last week in training. She said it was possible her leg would be so painful she would not compete at all. A small more recovery time — say another week — would surely help.

These Olympic pre-competition periods have not been kind to Vonn, the most dominant female skier in the world the last two years. Four years ago, she seemed star-crossed when she crashed spectacularly in training two days before the downhill at the Turin Games. Just two weeks ago, Vonn was widely quoted after the final pre-Olympic World Cup race saying that she felt fortunate to have escaped the Olympic buildup relatively healthy. No one at the time mentioned that terrible things happened in training as well.

It is impossible to tell how Vonn will feel when she tests her terribly bruised shin in her ultrastiff boots and skis during Thursday morning’s training for the super combined. It’s impossible to tell how much better she may be by Sunday, the day the event is scheduled to take place.

But there was something in the messages filtering out of the United States ski team camp late Wednesday that sounded nearly optimistic about her chances for recovery. How close she can return to her former dominating self is again the fantastic unknown, but there seemed to be an eagerness to believe that the next few days could favorably alter Vonn’s condition.

Dr. William Sterett, the United States ski team doctor, examined Vonn in Vancouver on Tuesday and is helping with her treatment. He said in a conference call that Vonn was “well on her way to looking very excellent at these Olympics.” He added that she was getting better daily.

He also reminded reporters that he did not count her out at the Turin Games when others did.

“She’s a tough kid,” he said.

On the mountain earlier Wednesday, as word of her injury spread among the men’s downhillers at their training, many racers shook their heads dejectedly as they discussed an injury “where the boot cuff meets the shin,” as the Swiss racer Didier Cuche said, repeating what he heard.

“Terrible spot,” Cuche said. “Maybe the worst.”

And that is what Vonn said in her news conference as well. Her doctors, but, said later that the bruise was an inch above where the boot meets the shin. Sterett said it might be hard to know because ski racers “are an fascinating breed” who have injuries that nearly defy normal physiology. But Sterett clarified that the injury was above the boot line because of the way the leg bends when a racer falls over the fronts of the skis, which is what Vonn said she did.

Several of the male racers at the Whistler Creekside racecourse, speaking of Vonn, remarked that if the injury was above the boot cuff, it might not be as painful to race with, at least in time. This is, of course, assuming that the swelling enveloping the injury does not extend toward her foot, which would continue to make the boot/shin contact painful.

And it’s vital to remember that Vonn is a racer who charges downhill at 70 miles an hour, not a recreational skier who may mildly engage the ski boots in a forward flex.

Still, Vonn’s doctors were talking about padding and a variety of high-powered painkillers they had not yet tried on her.

It is a given that Vonn will make her best attempt to race through pain or discomfort; she proved that in Turin. But it is also right that while Vonn returned to ski in the 2006 Olympics, she did not ski like herself. She did not come close to winning a medal.

Vonn refused X-rays when the injury occurred in Austria last week. That choice was more like a figurative act, she said, like putting her fingers to her ears to avoid hearing terrible news. On Wednesday, she said she delivered the terrible news publicly and willingly, but added, “I’m not making excuses for myself.”

Knowing her history, Vonn will probably be in a start house soon after the Games officially start Friday night. The schedule is not the lucky break she once considered it to be, but it has been on her calendar for four years.

Vonn is the punctual type.

Written by Bill Pennginton, New York Times

Roberto Luongo made 31 saves for his fourth shutout of the season in the Vancouver Canucks’ 3-0 victory over the Florida Panthers on Thursday night.

Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen scored second-period goals and Ryan Kesler added a power-play goal in the third period for the Canucks.

Luongo, making his second start in Florida since the Panthers traded him to Vancouver in June 2006, was the beneficiary of some luck, with the Panthers hitting five posts.

Florida also wasted a 5-on-3 power play by being called for too many men on the ice.

The Panthers, who have lost five in a row, set a franchise record with their 12th consecutive game with two goals or less. Florida has scored a total of 13 goals during that stretch.

Tomas Vokoun, making his 20th consecutive start for the Panthers, stopped 32 shots.

Vancouver centre Rick Rypien hit the post with a backhander with the Canucks leading 1-0 in the second period.

Burrows opened the scoring 1:18 into the second period when he one-timed a feed from Henrik Sedin just before being wrestled to the ice by Florida captain Bryan McCabe.

Hansen, playing in his second game after a conditioning stint in the minors, added to the lead with a small-handed goal at 18:10.

After Florida dumped the puck into the Vancouver zone, both Dennis Seidenberg and Steven Reinprecht overskated the puck to give Hansen a breakaway.

Hansen beat Vokoun with a wrist shot over his left shoulder.

Ottawa forward Chris Neil searches for the puck in the crease of Washington goalie Semyon Varlamov on Thursday. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek each had a goal and two assists as the Ottawa Senators defeated the Washington Capitals 6-5, their 13th victory in the last 14 games.

Ottawa place together strong first and third periods at Scotiabank Place to hand Washington its first regulation loss in its last 16 games. With the score 4-4 entering the final period, Chris Phillips and Alex Kovalev scored successive goals to make goalie Brian Elliott a winner in his 12th consecutive start.

The Capitals had gone ahead 4-3 with a three-goal spurt in the second before Chris Neil tied the score late in the period. Milan Michalek also scored for Ottawa, adding an help.

Alexander Semin scored a hat trick and drew an help for the visitors, with Tomas Fleischmann and Jeff Schultz also scoring. Alex Ovechkin drew an help to extend his point streak to nine games, but Nicklas Backstrom saw his nine-game point streak halted.

Semyon Varlamov struggled in the Washington net in his first NHL start since Dec. 7. The Russian was 12-1-1 at that point but encountered a pair of injuries to halt his momentum.

The Capitals had won 14 straight until an overtime loss in Montreal on Wednesday.

Washington has averaged just under five goals scored over the last 16 games, but the goals are starting to come in bunches the other way. The Capitals have surrendered 16 in the last three games.

With Buffalo losing in overtime to Carolina on Thursday, the Senators have overtaken the Sabres atop the Northeast Division, putting Ottawa in third in the Eastern Conference.

Ottawa trailed Buffalo by a double-digit margin in points in mid-January.

The Senators scored on both of their power plays and denied the NHL’s top-ranked power play on two Washington advantages.

Ottawa went up 2-0 by the midway mark of the first.

Just seconds after Elliott hugged the post on Boyd Gordon’s wraparound, Spezza wired a wrister from the right circle over Varlamov’s glove just over six minutes into the game.

Spezza now has 11 goals and four assists in the last 11 games he’s played.

The goal started from a faceoff win in Ottawa’s own end, and the next one four minutes later came off a clean draw in the Washington zone.

Spezza won the face off back to Michalek, who snapped it home before Varlamov could adjust.

Ottawa defenceman Anton Volchenkov sprawled to block a bid from the sniper Ovechkin, but not long after Fleischmann worked a give-and-go with and beat Elliott with a hard shot.

Varlamov looked like he was beginning to find a rhythm late in the period after denying Mike Fisher’s blast from the slot, but he was porous on the goal that made it 3-1 Ottawa with just seven seconds left in the period.

Alfredsson corralled Spezza’s cross-ice pass with his skates and beat Varlamov between the pads for the first of two Ottawa power-play goals.

The Senators killed off an early power play early in the second and Elliott was forced at the five-minute mark to muffle an Ovechkin shot set up by Backtrom’s drop pass.

Ottawa defenceman Alex Picard lost his stick to set up the sequence that got the Capitals within a goal at the 6:39 mark. Schultz snapped a harmless looking shot from the point, but it beat Elliott high.

Semin tied it not long after Varlamov made a key save off Fisher. The Russian was set up by excellent work on the boards from Brendan Morrison and then used traffic on the left side to his advantage for a snapshot at 15:17.

Semin scored 42 seconds later on a high shot from the other side after the next faceoff. For at the least the second goal, Elliott was guilty of falling too early on the play.

Neil got Ottawa back on even terms, his backhand shot with two minutes left in the period on a rebound just crossing the line as Varlamov sprawled.

The Senators had the Capitals on the run early in the third, with Phillips unleashing a slapper off defenceman John Erskine’s stick and past Varlamov.

With Ovechkin in the box for interference at the seven-minute mark, Filip Kuba and Michalek set up Kovalev’s low slapper goal to restore a two-goal lead.

There was end-to-end action with seven minutes left, the sequence punctuated by a Washington goal. Semin barely missed on a mini-breakaway and then scored through traffic, with Spezza denied in between on Varlamov’s save.

Semin now has 29 goals. It was the third consecutive game in which a Washington player scored a hat trick, following Ovechkin on Sunday against Pittsburgh and Brooks Laich against Montreal on Wednesday.

The Capitals buzzed late in the third, but Mike Knuble’s attempt to stuff it inside the post was thwarted by Elliott.

Ottawa is 2-1 in the season series, with the home side winning each time.

The Senators will play 14 of their final 21 regular-season games on the road, beginning with weekend affairs in Detroit and the New York Islanders.