In the three-game sweep of the NHL from Saturday, we begin in San Jose, where Antti Niemi made 31 saves and shutout the Chicago Blackhawks, 2-0.
“It’s still a little special even though it’s been a while,” Niemi said. “They’re still one of the top teams in the League, so it’s always good to win against them.”
It was Niemi’s fourth shutout of the year.
“I think not only having shutout but the way I felt,” Niemi said. “Patient and calm and relaxed. I felt really good.”
The Sharks got an early goal from Melker Karlsson and made that stand up until Joe Thornton scored in an empty net to seal the win.
“We believe we’re a good hockey team,” Sharks defenseman Brent Burns said. “It’s just a matter of winning, that’s all it comes down to, getting points. I think throughout the year we’ve had some good winning streaks. It’s just about putting points in the bank every night.”
San Jose limited the Hawks chances throughout the game.
“We liked how we played for the first 40 minutes,” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “They get the first one and that gets the crowd going. They are happy to check and contain and eliminate. We had some great opportunities in the second period but didn’t get the equalizer. And we had some decent looks in the third. … It was one of those games where you thought you felt something was going to come eventually and it didn’t happen.”
In Calgary, the visiting Edmonton Oilers played a tough forty minutes of hockey and led 2-0 after the second period.
The problem is they forgot about the final twenty minutes and allowed the Flames to score four times and take a 4-2 win.
Lance Bouma scored twice in the final frame to help the Flames to the win.
“Obviously, we have come from behind in the past so we know we can do it and we have the belief in here,” Bouma said. “That’s huge for us. We always say going into the third period that the third is always our best and we always seem to find a way.
“I think the biggest thing is just confidence. We have the belief in here that going into the third period, whether we’re down by two or down by three, that we can come back in a game. Our conditioning is great. We just have that belief and we find a way.”
Jordan Eberle and Benoit Pouliot scored for Edmonton in the first to build the lead. The Oilers had control of the game until Paul Byron scored at 2:56 of the third to open the gates for Calgary.
“It was simple mistakes,” Eberle said of the Oilers’ failure to close out the game. “We shot ourselves in the foot tonight. We turned a couple pucks over and I mean, it’s just been kind of the same case. Every guy in the room has done it. Myself, a lot of guys. It seems like every night there’s a couple plays that shoot us and that’s where we lost. We’ve known the way we needed to play to win this game and we just didn’t do it in the third.”
In Tampa, the Lightning continued their home dominance behind a 34-save effort from Ben Bishop and beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 3-1 for their 10th straight at home.
“We play with a lot of confidence at home, and we know how important these games are when it comes down to playoff-seeding time,” Bishop said. “This win was different because I knew they were going to make it tough on our offense. They turned up the heat in the second half of the game, but eventually our offense is going to get some chances, so we had to wait them out.”
Without Sergei Bobrovsky in net the Blue Jackets are not the same team. His injury leaves the club with a hole in their confidence.
“It could have been different, we had some good opportunities, did some good things, ripped really all game,” Blue Jackets coach Todd Richards said. “They’re a very good hockey team. They’re a fast team. I thought we skated with them. We gave them two goals though. You can’t give good teams goals. They’re a good enough team to earn them on their own, but we had two opportunities with pucks on our stick and we turned it over and the puck’s in the back of our net.”
Tampa got goals from Brett Connolly, Cedric Paquette and Valtteri Filppula to make it 3-0 into the third before the Jackets were able to score.
“As we talked to our guys today, we thought it was pivotal that we had to get the lead and we did that,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “They are a very tough team to play, they make it hard to get through the neutral zone and they forecheck you hard, they hit, and they are big team on defense. We expected a tough, close game and were prepared for it.”
Columbus has lost three straight on the road and fall to 21-24-3 on the season.
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