The sweep of the MHL from Saturday night features three teams who got healthier overnight with big wins.
In Vancouver, the visiting Calgary Flames put together a complete game and defeated the Canucks, 4-1.
Both teams needed wins but the Flames prevailed on the strength of Jonas Hiller and his 34 saves on the night.
“Hills was outstanding,” coach Bob Hartley said.
Michael Frolik, Sean Monahan, Mikael Backlund, and Sam Bennett scored for the Flames.
“Hills played great for us in net,” said Backlund, who also had an assist. “He made big saves for us in the second period and created some momentum.”
Hiller stoned the Canucks and kept the Flames in the game until Backlund and Bennett scored empty-netters to seal it.
“All I can do is play as well as I can when I get a chance and hopefully a few more games,” Hiller said. “In the position we’re at, every single point is really important. … That’s definitely something to build on.”
It was a frustrating loss for the Canucks.
“We had chances.” Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said. “We had 35 [shots] and we had 19 wide and 19 blocked, so we had lots of opportunities, but you gotta come up with something.”
In Detroit, Dylan Larkin and Tomas Tatar each had a goal and two points and the Red Wings added goals from Tomas Jurco, Kyle Quincey and Mike Green to beat the New York Islanders, 5-1.
Petr Mrazek made 28 saves for the Wings’ win.
“Obviously it’s imperative that we get wins here at home,” Green said. “We haven’t been getting our points here at home and it was a big night for us to sort of get in the right direction and I thought the guys played really well tonight and Petr stood on his head.”
John Tavares scored the lone goal for the Isles.
“It was definitely nice to play with a lead, nice cushion,” Quincey said. “We don’t do that much, so that was very nice to do tonight.”
In Montreal, the Canadiens got a much-needed win, 5-1, over the Edmonton Oilers.
Seldom used Ben Scrivens made 23 saves for the Hans’ win.
Tomas Plekanec scored and had four points on the night and Brendan Gallagher, P.K. Subban, Lars Eller, and Tom Gilbert also scored for the Habs.
Scrivens was pleased to beat the Oilers after being demoted to the AHL Bakersfield Condors after training camp and then not having proper vise papers.
“I’m not bitter about getting traded,” Scrivens said. “I guess if there’s any bitterness it’s how I perceive myself getting buried, you know, to get sent down without a visa and spin your tires for three weeks and then get spot duty.
“I played 57 games in the League last year and then to kind of have that go against you, I mean, it’s a new management group, at the end of the day it’s a business, but I’ve been traded before. There’s no bitterness based on being traded. I’m still friends with guys on the team, some of them, and bitterness comes with how I was treated on the way out, which I guess leaves a sour taste in your mouth, but what can you do?”
Cam Talbot made 19 saves through two periods before being replaced by Anders Nilsson .
“That’s as bad as we’ve been in a long time. To a man,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. “Usually you get five, six, seven guys that give each other a pretty good night. Tonight we even lacked that. From the skilled players, the workers, the positional players on down it was a pretty flat night. We didn’t skate well, we didn’t pass, our structure was poor. … We got what we deserved.”
Benoit Pouliot scored shorthanded for the Oilers’ only goal.
“Obviously, when you get rewarded for some good work on the ice, it’s great,” Subban said. “We’ve played a lot of hockey games this year where we’ve played well, we’ve played the system exactly the way that we wanted to, we created scoring chances (and) it just didn’t happen for us, when the bounces aren’t going our way. But we worked really hard today and we got rewarded for it.”
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