Nashville Predators deny Calgary Flames comeback for third straight 5-3 -NHL Update
Calgary and Nashville were the only two teams facing off on New Year day as the Predators looked to extend their two-game winning streak, which they managed to pull off by denying the Flames a late comeback, 5-3, on Sunday, January 1, 2012, at the sold-out
Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
Sergei Kostitsyn picked up his first hat trick of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season. The best part was that he had a total of three shots on the net throughout the 60-minute contest for his shooting percentage to be a perfect 100.
Having only 37 shots in the past 33 games, Kostitsyn is a player that barely makes at attempts on the net, something which certainly worked for Nashville head coach, Barry Trotz.
"He got three shots ... that’s like 10 games for him sometimes it seems", Trotz said. "He's shooting the puck. We talked about him just doing that to create offense and not just to score a goal”.
Calgary captain, Jarome Iginla, potted his 15th goal of the season in the opening minutes of the first period to give the Flames a go-ahead lead, but as Kevin Klein and Sergei Kostitsyn added two straight for Nashville, the Flames just suddenly
burned out.
Matt Halischuk and Sergei Kostitsyn added two more in the second period nearly three minutes apart, which were the real two goals that gave Nashville a chance to secure the match.
Rene Bourque and Brendan Morrison gave Calgary a boost with two consecutive goals, a shooting streak which kicked off at the 1:17 mark of the third and ended with 2:03 remaining in the period, but Sergei Kostitsyn finalised the scoring and the match with
his last of the night at 19:30.
You're up a goal, win a draw in the neutral zone and we have the puck. Instead of taking it up ice we turn back and take it into our zone and turn it over for the first goal", frustrated Calgary coach, Brent Sutter said. "On the second goal we lost coverage
out in front of our net. The third goal was obviously a turnover in the neutral zone that turned into a 2-on-1”.
Flames will go on to play the Washington Capitals on Tuesday while Predators are to host the Dallas Stars on Thursday.
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