The three-game sweep of the NHL from Thursday starts in Calgary where the Flames stayed hot with a 4-3 win over the Buffalo Sabres.
Johnny Gaudreau had the game-winner in a difficult test of wills between the Flames and the Sabres’ Rasmus Ristolainen who scored a hat trick in the loss.
“It’s huge,” Gaudreau said. “We’ve been practicing real hard and we weren’t really happy with the way we started the season. These past four games, a lot of guys have stepped up. A lot of players are playing well right now. We’ve got to keep this going with our last home game and find a way to win on the road.”
Jonas Hiller returned to the crease after being sick this week and made 27 saves in the win.
“That’s special,” Ristolainen said. “That doesn’t happen often to me, so I take it, but we really need wins. We’ve got to find a way and do it together here.
“That wasn’t what we wanted. Really bad two periods. They outworked, they outbattled us, and that’s not the way we should play, especially the situation — three losses, tough road trip. We’ve got to pick it up and do it together.”
Sean Monahan (two goals) and Markus Granlund scored for the Flames.
“It might not have been a perfect game, but you should’ve been in the locker room around 5:30, quarter to six when the medical staff runs in the coach’s office saying, ‘Guys are puking everywhere,'” Calgary coach Bob Hartley said. “You have Karri Ramo in the laundry room and you have Jiri Hudler in the doctor’s room, and they’re throwing up and they’re white like ghosts, and suddenly you look at Jonas Hiller and he’s coming in, and he’s whiter than a snowman. You’re thinking, ‘Gosh, I might have to put (Flames associate coach) Jacques Cloutier in to play goal.”
In Winnipeg, the Jets picked up two precious points in a 6-4 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Mathieu Perreault had a goal and four points in the win; the line of Perreault, Drew Stafford and Mark Scheifele had nine points in the effort.
“I think they’re capable of having a night like this, but they haven’t been giving up anything [defensively] to do it, so that’s what is encouraging about them,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said.
The Jets had built a 5-2 lead before the Jackets rallied with two goals from Cam Atkinson.
“We’ll fix the problems and keep working on them,” Maurice said. “There are no style points in the NHL.”
Blake Wheeler sealed the win with an empty netter.
Curtis McElhinney took the loss in Winnipeg but played well despite lack of support – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Curtis McElhinney took the loss on 29 saves.
“It wasn’t the performance nor anywhere close to the result that my team needed from me in order to put a winning effort forward,” said McElhinney, who finished with 29 saves. “The goal support was there. On my end, it wasn’t good enough.”
With Sergei Bobrovsky sidelined with a lower body injury, McElhinney has the crease.
“In the second [period], I think I got into a pretty good groove there,” McElhinney said. “I felt pretty good. It would have been nice to come out in the third and shut it down, but there were just some mistakes [on my part] that are unacceptable at this point right now for us.”
The loss created more fire under the kettle of Columbus coach John Tortorella.
“We lost the game. We lost the game,” he said. “We can break it down all you want as far as a push here, a push there. We didn’t play well enough to win.
“I can go into it all night long, but I’d rather not do it right now. We didn’t play well enough. We had a push at the end, but we didn’t play well enough to win. In all areas. I thought we were just a little too light on the puck. We lost too many battles. The fourth [Winnipeg] goal, we had a chance to get it out. We turn it over.”
In Nashville, Patrick Kane extended his streak to 24 games on the lone Chicago Blackhawks goal in a 5-1 Predators win.
James Neal had two goals in win over Chicago – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
The Preds rode three goals from James Neal, Craig Smith and Filip Forsberg to a 3-0 lead they took into the third period.
“I think it was one of our best periods of the year,” Neal said. “I think every guy wanted to respond from our game in Chicago [a 4-1 loss Tuesday]. That was a tough one for us so coming back home and having Chicago again was great for our team. I think we did a great job on every line. The first shift was big, and it got us rolling.”
Kane scored at 5:43 of the third to break the shutout bid from Pekka Rinne] who had 35 saves on the night.
Neal scored his second of the game with just over five minutes left in the third.
“We were ready, but we were ready to play fast I think,” Smith said. “We just wanted to hit holes and just regardless of what happened just to move our feet and play fast. I think that way you can kind of catch their defense. If there’s a quick scrum and the puck kind of slips loose, you can catch them. If you turn it over, you’ve still got speed to get back and go the other way.”
Eric Nystrom scored an empty-netter to finish the scoring.
“Guys were ready to play,” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “Offensively we were on the go and defensively we were tight. There were a couple of big saves by [goaltender Pekka Rinne] in the first period that probably get hidden a little bit by the way we played, but sometimes those are the hardest saves when there’s not a lot of action.”
Scott Darling was in the Chicago net and made 29 saves in the loss.
“It’s a huge win for us, and I’m really happy with the way we stuck with it at the end there,” Rinne said. “We had to defend and defended really well at the end there, so big win.”
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