The sweep of the NHL from Friday night starts in Calgary where the Flames’ Brian Elliott made 31 saves in a 5-2 defeat of the Ottawa Senators.
The win was Calgary’s third straight after the opening season on a skid.
“We’re just recognizing who we are,” Elliott said. “I think at the start of the year we didn’t really know what kind of team we were and how to play effectively. Now guys are really buying into what we need to do.”
Recognizing theycan win is the best part of the turn around.
Dougie Hamilton potted two goals and the Flames got scoring from Sam Bennett, Sean Monahan and Michael Frolik.
Erik Karlsson and Kyle Turris scored for the Sens who fell to 4-3-0.
“I think we’re playing fine and we’re doing a lot of good things out there,” Karlsson said. “This could have easily been a different game. We’ve just got to hope that if we keep doing this, one of these days it’s going to be the other way around for us.”
Sens goalie Andrew Hammond did not return to action after the first period after sustaining a lower-body injury. He was replaced by Chris Driedger/
“I’m sure it’s very tough. He’s a young guy coming in,” Ottawa coach Guy Boucher said of Driedger. “Everybody knows right now we’ve got some adversity. Our No. 1 goalie is out and our backup is out. I know the kid probably didn’t expect to play and he comes in, and I’m sure it was tough, but it’ll benefit him in the future.”
If not for the4 Montreal Canadiens rolling through their schedule, the Edmonton Oilers would be grabbing all of the press. On Friday night, the Oilers blanked the Vancouver Canucks, 2-0.
Cam Talbot made 26 saves for the shutout.
Connor McDavid scored what became the game-winner and Milan Lucic added an empty-netter to seal the win for Edmonton who improved to 7-1-0.
“We’ve been able to shut some teams down lately,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. “That has been a big focus of ours. We know we can’t let our goals-against get away from us, and the most promising thing for our team is we have been able to win games differently. We have been able to score a lot of goals and win, and we’ve been able to score a few and win.”
Ryan Miller made 25 saves in the losing effort.
“I thought we deserved better,” Canucks captain Henrik Sedin said. “This is the way we have to play. I think this was our best effort overall. We have to keep grinding away and get some goals.”
In Denver, the anticipated meeting of two high-powered teams, Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Avalanche turned into a defensive contest with the Jets taking a 1-0 win over the Avs.
Michael Hutchinson made 37 stops for the shutout.
“He was spectacular, especially with all the chaos that was going on in front of the net,” Jets head coach Maurice said . “He got a piece on all the ones he needed to. I’m happy for him. He’s worked hard, he’s played three very strong games for us and he gets a statistical number that recognizes that.”
Shawn Matthias was the game’s lone goal scorer in a match that had portended a frenzy of offense including goals.
“It’s nice to score against your former team, always,” former Avs Matthias said . “There’s no animosity toward any old team. I’m playing hard for the Jets.”
Semyon Varlamov was not nearly as tested as Hutchinson but he did stop 20 in the loss.
“We knew they were going to have a push at some point and our guys did a great job,” Hutchinson said. “They had a lot of shots in the third, but I don’t think that’s indicative of how our team played. I was happy with my game, but it wasn’t a perfect game. I left some rebounds in areas where you don’t want to put them.”
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