Photo Credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
Except for a bland second period, the Flames fought hard against the Nashville Predators at home on Friday night.
It all started when Eric Nystrom, former Flames player, started off his colossal night and opened the scoring in the first period. It didn’t take long for Mark Giordano to answer back with a powerplay goal to tie the score going into the second.
The Flames played a terrible second period of hockey, allowing Eric Nystrom two more goals to get his hat trick of the night. The score was 3-1 for the Preds at the end of the period.
The third period started with the Flames on a powerplay. With a second powerplay goal under their belt (David Jones first goal of the night), the Flames allowed another goal by Nystrom, who ended up having the game of his career against Calgary.
As always, the Flames were not taking a loss laying down. Another powerplay goal by Mikael Backlund put Calgary within one, and, just over a minute later, David Jones tipped in a shot by T.J. Brodie to even the score with just over six minutes left on the clock.
The game went into overtime, which solved nothing but proved by its’ intensity and pressure from both teams that they wanted to win.
Joe Colborne, the first shooter, was stopped, but Jiri Hudler netted one on Devan Dubnyk to put the Flames up in the second round. Roman Josi scored on Reto Berra in the third round to tie it up and force a fourth round. Sean Monahan scored, and it was all up to Reto Berra to make a save on Ryan Ellis – which he did.
Flames won 5-4 in the shootout by a combination of Monahan’s SO goal and Berra’s The Scorpion 2.0 (4:35).