The three-game sweep of the NHL from Friday night starts in Calgary where Mark Giordano scored his second goal of the gamer in overtime to give the Flames a 3-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings.
“It feels really good,” Giordano said. “I thought that’s our game out there. We played our game all night. It was a great atmosphere out there. Happy for our team to get back in the win column. We deserved that one I thought, and we got rewarded late.”
Joe Colborne provided the regulation heroics when scored late in the third period to force overtime.
“A few guys stepped up after last game and said some words, [Giordano] being one of them,” Colborne said. “He’s not really that vocal of a guy, and when he steps up and says some stuff like that, we made sure that we took notice of it. And that’s the mark of a leader; he was vocal but then he went and backed up his actions like he always does.”
Jonas Hiller made 27 saves in the win.
“That’s definitely not my favorite, that 3-on-3,” Hiller said. “It’s part of the game. You try to adjust. You kind of have to expect everything. It can go quick either way. You kind of have to be ready for those odd-man rushes. I felt pretty good. I felt I was patient tonight and wasn’t just going for the shooter and was able to keep with the guy who had the puck and don’t move too early.”
In Brooklyn, the Boston Bruins trailed 2-1 after 20 minutes and rallied with four unanswered goals for 5-3 win over the Islanders.
Jonas Gustavsson made 23 saves to get the Bruins the win.
“He was good,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “That first period and throughout the whole game he played well. … He’s given us more confidence to not overutilize [Tuukka Rask] and give him some games.”
After a strong first period, the Isles stopped skating.
“We just stopped playing,” Islanders forward Casey Cizikas said. “We didn’t compete hard enough. We didn’t do the little things to win those 1-on-1 battles and we kind of left [goalie Jaroslav] Halak to hang there. You have to play a full 60 minutes.”
The Bruins wrested control from the Isles in the second period.
“They came out in the second period and capitalized on our turnovers,” Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. “You can’t turn the puck over in this league. There are too many skilled guys and they are going to take advantage of it, and that is what they did tonight.”
In Buffalo, the visiting Montreal Canadiens continued their run to start the season with a 7-2 drubbing of the Sabres.
“It’s always good to win,” the Habs Brendan Gallagher said. “We just have a one-game-at-a-time mentality. It won’t change. Take this for what it is, we have another game [Saturday] night and we move on to that one.”
The Canadiens are now 8-0-0 to start the season; Montreal takes on the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night.
“It’s another challenge tomorrow and we realize that,” PK Subban said. “With every game, it’s only going to get tougher for us regardless of what our record is and what the schedule is. Every team is looking at us as hopefully one of the teams to beat in the league. We have to come out with the right mentality and I think we’re learning that. It’s fun. It’s fun to play right now when guys are coming out and executing the game plan as well as we are right now.”
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