CALGARY, Alberta – Ondrej Palat scored 3 minutes into overtime to lift the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 2-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night.
Calgary won a face-off deep in the Flames end but then lost control of the puck. The Lightning got the puck back to the point where Anton Stralman’s shot was stopped, but Palat put in the rebound for his second goal of the year.
The Lightning trailed 1-0 before finally solving Flames goaltender Karri Ramo with 2:16 left in the third period.
Jonathan Drouin got the puck in the corner and calmly zipped a diagonal pass to Jason Garrison at the far point. Ramo got a piece of Garrison’s slapshot but with the puck trickling towards the open net, Valtteri Filppula knocked it in the rest of the way.
Tampa Bay (4-2-1) has won two of its first three games on a five-game road trip, which continues in Winnipeg where the Lightning will play the Jets on Friday.
Dennis Wideman scored the only goal for Calgary (4-3-1).
Just back from a six-game road trip, the Flames were kicking off a five-game homestand, which continues on Thursday against Carolina.
Scoreless after two periods, Calgary opened the third period with its second power play of the game and this one they converted thanks to a skilled play by rookie left-winger Johnny Gaudreau.
Bursting through the neutral zone and into the Lightning end with speed and stickhandling the puck the entire way, Gaudreau wove right to elude Stralman, wove left to evade Matthew Carle, then flung a pass back across the slot to Wideman, who one-timed a shot past Evgeni Nabokov.
For Gaudreau, his highlight-reel assist was the third point in two games for the Flames rookie left-winger after being a healthy scratch two games ago in Columbus.
After a great pre-season, last years’s Hobey Baker Award winner got off to a tough start. The barely 5-foot-9 offensive dynamo had no points and was held to only one shot in the first five games of the regular season.
Getting back in Sunday night in Winnipeg, Gaudreau responded with his best game of the season with a goal and an assist.
Wideman is also off to a great start for Calgary. The 31-year-old defenseman has three goals already, just one off his total of four last year in an injury-riddled campaign that limited him to 46 games.
Calgary coach Bob Hartley continued his season-long pattern of rotating goalies in net, going with Ramo, a 2004 Tampa Bay draft pick, on Tuesday.
Ramo made 20 saves in falling to 2-1-1.
In his second start, 39-year-old Nabokov improved to 1-1-0. The Russian stopped 21 shots.
Notes: Healthy scratches for the Flames were RW Devin Setoguchi, RW Brian McGrattan and D Raphael Diaz… The game went nearly six minutes without a whistle in the second period. As a result, the major penalties to Giordano and Miller saw them sit in the penalty box for 9:49
Leave a Reply