In Sunrise, Cam Talbot made 38 saves and the Calgary Flames shut out the Florida Panthers, 3-0, on Sunday.
Johnny Gaudreau opened the scoring in the first period for the Flames – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“He’s been good for us all year,” Flames head coach Geoff Ward said. “Anytime we need a big game out of him, he’s given it to us. He was awesome again tonight. Our guys have confidence in him. He’s earned the confidence of our players by the way that he’s played. His starts this year, he’s given us a chance to win every night that he’s been in there, and that’s all you can ask from your starting goaltender.”
It was the seventh straight home loss for Florida.
“We’ve left some huge points, and (we need) to get something each and every time we’re here,” Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville said. “Obviously disappointed. We’ve put ourselves in a really tough spot. Let’s find a way to bring some excitement in our team game, get the building going in our favor.”
The Flames are one point clear for third in the Pacific Division.
Johnny Gaudreau opened the scoring in the first period.
“It was kind of a tough day, but it was nice to find the net there for him in the first,” Gaudreau said. “He watched a lot of my games and he was always a big supporter of me and my brother playing hockey, so it was a special time to find the net there.”
Milan Lucic added a goal in the second period and TJ Brodie potted the third goal in the final frame.
“I thought it was a good effort by our guys at the end of a tough road trip (3-1-1 on five-game trip),” Ward said. “I really liked the third period. I thought it was our best period of the night. The guys did a good job of being able to find ways to stretch the lead in the hockey game and I thought in the third period we didn’t give them very much. We played a real, real good road period, maybe our best one of the whole trip in order to end it off. Good response by our guys and a well-earned win.”
[WATCH: All Flames vs. Panthers highlights]
Sam Montembeault made 25 saves in the loss.
“We just maybe took for granted how difficult it is to win in the second half of the year,” the Panthers’ Aaron Ekblad said. “I’ve always liked to look at it as a completely different league in the second half. It’s not as easy to score goals. It’s a much tighter game. We haven’t found a way to crack that code yet and we really need to here soon.”
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