In Toronto, David Rittich made 35 saves for the Calgary Flames and held off the Maple Leafs in a shootout to win, 2-1, on Thursday night.
Matthew Tkachuk was lone scorer in the skills portion of the evening’s events.
David Rittich got the win for the Calgary Flames in the skills – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“Both goalies were good,” Rittich said. “That was a great game, not too many goals, but both teams had a lot of chances to score, and I would say [Frederik] Andersen was really good too. It was great to shut them down offensively, that’s why we came here. … I’m kind of tired right now. I can’t wait to get to the airplane. They’ve got five or six guys who can score anytime when they get the puck, so it wasn’t easy.”
William Nylander scored for the Leafs in regulation.
“We generated a number of chances that didn’t go in for us, their goaltender was very good, and luck didn’t go our way,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “Sometimes those things are going to happen.”
Derek Ryan scored the Flames’ lone regulation goal.
“I felt like I was pretty wide open there,” Ryan said. “They just kind of left me there, and Hamonic made a nice shot to the side, so I was able to get a nice tip on it and have it go five-hole.”
[WATCH:Â All Flames vs. Maple Leafs highlights]
Frederik Andersen made 31 saves in the loss.
“You’ve just to tip your hat to [Rittich],” the Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews said. “He made some unbelievable saves early in the game, and then I think we were kind of flat there in the second a bit. In the third we had, obviously, lots of really good chances. He made some really unbelievable saves. So you’ve got to tip your hat to him. Obviously, we would have loved to get the two points. We clawed our way back and got it to overtime and grabbed one. Definitely a game that could have gone the other way.”
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