In Edmonton,the Calgary Flames gave a up a 2-0 lead to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night, but Rasmus Andersson scored the game-winner to rescue the Flames for a Game 1 win.
Cam Talbot made 24 saves for the win.
“I think the biggest thing for us is we gained some confidence tonight,” Calgary head coach Geoff Ward said. “I think we learned some things as a team we that we certainly can apply through the rest of the series. For us, it was a good first game, but now we have to park it and move on and get ready for Game 2, Game 3 and Game 4 because they come fast now.”
Dillon Dube struck for two goals for the Flames.
“You can’t lose a series in the first game, so we tried to come out and get momentum our way and build off of it,” Dube said. “I think it was a good battle for us, a good test to be able to shut it down. I think we just need to keep rolling with it.”
Denis Gurianov and Jamie Benn scored for Dallas with just nine seconds separating the two goals.
“I think you look at our last two periods, the way we played, the forechecking game, getting it in deep, possession time in the offensive zone. It’s second opportunities,” Dallas’ Corey Perry said. “Those two goals we scored tonight, there’s nothing pretty about them. It’s just getting pucks to the net and outworking the opposition, and that’s how we have to play.”
[WATCH: All Flames vs. Stars Game 1 highlights]
Anton Khudobin made 23 saves in the loss.
“We’ve been talking about this for a while that when this playoff started, we were going to be playing a team that basically had won a playoff round and it was playoff-ready,” Dallas head coach Rick Bowness said. “You can talk about it all you want, but again we weren’t on our toes consistently enough early. They were. They’re feeling very good about themselves with that win against the Jets. That team is a very confident team right now. We were half a step behind early, and it cost us.”
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