LONDON -- Fernando Torres ended a goal drought lasting more than 25 hours by scoring twice for Chelsea in a 5-2 victory over Leicester on Sunday to guide his team into the FA Cup semifinals. Jason Avant Panthers Jersey . The Spain striker had failed to score for Chelsea since October until he found the net in the 67th minute, and he added another goal in the 85th with a near-post header at Stamford Bridge. "I needed those goals. Ive been working so hard to get them," said Torres, who hadnt scored for 25 hours, 41 minutes. "Maybe the job of a striker is to score goals and if you dont do it people think youre playing badly. "But the support has been here and I feel the confidence of the manager (Roberto di Matteo) now. We have some important games coming." Gary Cahill opened the scoring with a 12th-minute header. The January signing marked his first Chelsea goal by unveiling a "Pray 4 Muamba" T-shirt in tribute to his former Bolton teammate, who is in intense care after going into cardiac arrest and collapsing in Saturdays abandoned match at Tottenham. Salomon Kalou doubled Chelseas lead in the 17th with a neat finish, and Raul Meireles rounded off the win in the 90th. Jermaine Beckford and Ben Marshall grabbed the consolation goals for second-tier club Leicester. The win extended Di Matteos winning run to four matches since replacing Andre Villas-Boas to become interim manager two weeks ago. "Every win gives the players confidence -- you can see they have more confidence," Di Matteo said. "I thought Fernando had a terrific game, he fought very hard for the team and managed to score a couple of goals too. Its wonderful for him. "I have a lot of belief in him and the other players. He works so hard, and in life if you do that you will get rewarded for it." Cahills opener came after rising at the far post to head home Juan Matas corner. Torres was involved when Chelsea doubled its advantage five minutes later. He broke into the Leicester half and outpaced Paul Konchesky before sliding the ball through to Kalou, who finished calmly past goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel. Moments later, Torres should have ended his goal drought when receiving the ball in the centre of box by Mata, but he headed straight at Schmeichel. The visitors struggled to keep possession for any meaningful length of time but Chelsea sat back. Torres had another chance just before the hour mark but his left-footed effort was deflected clear, as the Chelsea supporters willed their 50 million-pound striker ($80 million in January 2011) to find a goal. And the burden was finally lifted from Torres shoulders when he squeezed Meireles pass into the corner. That goal seemed to killed off the game as a contest, but Beckford managed to force Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech into a good save with 15 minutes remaining. But Beckford did manage to score after Neil Danns effort had crashed against the post. The three-goal margin was soon restored through Torres near-post header from Meireles corner. But Leicester substitute Ben Marshall scored the goal of the game in bending a shot around Cech and into the corner of the net. Drayton Florence Panthers Jersey . St-Gelais, from Saint-Felicien, Que., finished with a time of 44.069 seconds. She won silver in the same event four years ago in Vancouver. South Koreas Seung-Hi Park won the heat in 43.611 and Italys Arianna Fontana also qualified with a time of 43. Haruki Nakamura Panthers Jersey . Cleveland acquired lefty Marc Rzepczynski from St. Louis on Tuesday, adding an experienced veteran to a bullpen that has struggled all season to retire lefties.From John Ferguson Jr. to Cliff Fletcher (part II) to Brian Burke to Dave Nonis, the annual free agent frenzy has been nothing short of a recurring nightmare for Maple Leaf general managers (recent) past and present. Each and every July 1st signing has brought with it excitement and all too large expectations only to fizzle into one pricey disappointment after another. Now helming another rebuild in Calgary, Burke often described the day in disastrous terms for the NHLs management community, decrying the slew of exorbitant contracts with "unrealistic values and unrealistic term…that bite you right in the butt at some point". Value, all too important under the confines of a cap system and best found in homegrown products, is never harder to find than on July 1st – a day that sees the contracts get larger and sillier with each passing year. It began in earnest for the Leafs shortly after the outset of the cap era in the summer of 2006. John Ferguson Jr., fighting for a job that would soon run its course, plugged two holes on the Toronto defence that July with a pair of expensive free agent additions. Formerly a member of Tampas Cup winning squad in 2004, Pavel Kubina was inked for four years and $20 million and Hal Gill, once a towering defender in Boston but far less effective under the free-flowing rules of the league post-lockout, raked in more than $6 million for three years. Both were overpaid from the outset – especially in the case of Kubina, one of many to struggle under the weight of an onerous contract – and both were eventually traded. 2007 Jason Blake came next. Scoring more frequently as an Islander in 2006 than at any other point in a 13-year career, Blake – age 33 – signed with the Leafs for five years and $20 million in the last significant move of the Ferguson Jr. era. Blake, predictably, could not live up to the expectations of such a large contract, never coming close to 40 goals again; he was dealt to Anaheim alongside Vesa Toskala for J.S. Giguere in 2010. 2008 Mostly forgotten now, but of considerable damage to the organization during a brief 10-month tenure, Fletcher continued the free agent plight in 2008. Maybe even more stunning now than it was then, Fletcher handed former Avalanche defender Jeff Finger, he of 94 games of NHL experience, four years and $14 million. Finger played 62 forgettable games in a Leaf uniform, was eventually buried in the minors, never to be heard from again. Joining Finger in the free agent trot that day was Niklas Hagman, a Finnish winger who scored 27 goals the year prior in Dallas. Hagman also cashed in under Fletcher, lured for four years at a bloated $12 million. Though he scored 42 goals in two seasons with the Leafs, Hagman was consistently inconsistent, soon to be dealt to Calgary in the famed Dion Phaneuf trade. 2009 Still months from pulling the trigger on the noisiest (and most controversial) move of his busy Toronto tenure – the hotly debated Phil Kessel trade – Burke sought a big and ultimately failed splash in his first summer as the Leafs front man. It was all about truculence then and truculence he got. There were the four years and $4 million pitched to former Rangers heavyweight, Colton Orr; five long years and $22.5 million to Mike Komisarek; three years at just over $11 million for Francois Beauchemin. Orr lingereed as a mostly unused tough guy for Ron Wilson before being briefly banished to the minors (he eventually returned to the NHL). Kelvin Benjamin Panthers Jersey. . Komisarek, a step or two slow for the speedier new game, tumbled quickly under the burden of a deal he could never live up to and was bought out by the organization last summer. Beauchemin eventually found his game, but not in Toronto. He returned to the Ducks in the Jake Gardiner-Joffrey Lupul swap, finishing fourth in the 2013 Norris Trophy voting. 2010 Still trying to fill various holes through free agency, Burke added the veteran grinder Colby Armstrong from Pittsburgh the following summer (three years, $9 million). Armstrong never found much health as a Leaf though and preceded fellow free agent signee, Komisarek, on the buyout line. 2011 Tim Connolly recorded just 42 points in his final go-around in Buffalo, but still landed $9 million for two years in the summer of 2011. Connolly never hit the desired mark of No. 1 centre for the Leafs (he had 36 points in 70 games), was demoted to the Marlies after a year and is now out of the NHL. 2013 And then last summer there was David Clarkson, the first signee of Nonis as Leafs GM. In perhaps the worst deal of the aforementioned bunch, Clarkson landed in his hometown for seven years and more than $36 million on July 1st, 2013. Year 1 was an all-out nightmare and while theres every chance of a bounce-back of some kind in Year 2, his talents are unlikely to ever match the value of an incredibly burdensome contract. Clarkson was just the latest in a line of July 1st blunders. The fundamental flaw in continually swinging big in free agency is the lacking value the process ensures – players are almost always overvalued on Day 1 of the contract. As demonstrated yet again by the L.A. Kings earlier this summer, team building (and sustained success) is best accomplished through successful draft and development, not pricey spending on a mistake-laden day. And so while impending UFAs like Paul Statsny may appear to solve long-standing needs, Nonis (and Brendan Shanahan) would be wise to approach with caution. The answer, especially in Toronto, is almost never found on July 1st. Player Contract End Result Pavel Kubina 4 years, $20M Traded Hal Gill 3 years, $6.25M Traded Jason Blake 5 years, $20M Traded Jeff Finger 4 years, $14M Demoted Niklas Hagman 4 years, $12M Traded Colton Orr 4 years, $4M Demoted * Mike Komisarek 5 years, $22.5M Bought Out Francois Beauchemin 3 years, $11.4M Traded Colby Armstrong 3 years, $9M Bought Out Tim Connolly 2 years, $9M Demoted David Clarkson 7 years, $36.75M N/A ' ' '
