In Denver Saturday, Johnny Gaudreau broke into the Colorado Avalanche zone in overtime to score game-winner in a 3-2 decision for the Calgary Flames.
“Kind of a clear breakaway there, kind of faked the shot, tried to bring [goalie Semyon Varlamov] all the way across and found his 5-hole there,” Gaudreau said.
The Flames had given up two goals in the first period before rallying.
Nathan MacKinnon scored just 11 seconds into the game for the Avs and J.T. Compher added to the lead before the end of the opening frame.
“I guess we were surprised,” MacKinnon said. “We should have expected more of a response. It’s pretty rare that teams call a timeout quick, so obviously they’re not happy. I’m sure Bill Peters wasn’t happy. He got them fired up for the second and they outdid us for the rest of the game.”
Sam Bennett got the tally started and Elias Lindholm forced extra time on a goal with under two minutes left in regulation.
“We knew we had to be better,” Gaudreau said. “We came in here after the first, talked about it, said there’s lots of time left, and we showed what we’re capable of.”
David Rittich had 24 saves in the Flames win.
“We had a great start to the game where we come out with a purpose,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “We’re driving pucks, putting pucks on net, hunting down rebounds, we’re in and out of our zone, doing everything right.
“Then it looked to me we thought it was going to be easy. We got away from our game, we were standing around. Every play has to be a fancy play, we won’t skate, no intent to get any pucks to the net. We made it easy on their goaltender. You can’t check with your eyes.”
[WATCH: All Flames vs. Avalanche highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 38 saves in the loss.
“You can’t just dominate the first period and then the rest of the game … you have to play all 60 minutes,” Varlamov said. “In these kind of games, we should be happy, probably, with the one point because of the way we played.”
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