In Denver, the Colorado Avalanche forced extra time in their match with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night when Matt Calvert deflected a shot for a goal with 31 seconds left in regulation.
“I just threw it on net,” Cale Makar said. “Calvert made an unreal tap-in. Yeah, it’s a tough way to lose in overtime. Obviously, we get the one point, but we came here for two.”
The Penguins bounced back when Jared McCann scored late in the extra session for a 4-3 win.
Matt Murray made 28 saves in the win.
“It was another really gritty, hard win, and that’s what we needed tonight,” Murray said. “That’s a really good team over there, so we just stayed resilient no matter what happened.”
Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog were the other Avs strikers.
“You give any team in this league just one opportunity, they are going to take advantage of it,” Makar said. “It’s unfortunate for us they did tonight. I mean, it’s just a learning curve for us. We can’t give that up in the third period, and for us, it’s definitely not a confidence builder when we drop games like that.”
Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust and Teddy Blueger scored for the Penguins in regulation.
“I just think it’s attention to detail,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “When you don’t have the puck, you have to defend. I tell the guys all the time, hope’s not a strategy. We can’t hope that we’re going to win a puck battle. We’ve got to make sure we defend and we’re diligent in limiting our opponent’s opportunities.”
[WATCH: All Penguins vs. Avalanche highlights]
Pavel Francouz 26 made saves in the loss.
“I think it’s great for us that we were able to bounce back and tie it with the empty net,” Francouz said. “It’s a good point, but I think we deserved two points.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.