CALGARY, Alberta – Nazem Kadri scored an unassisted goal at 3:56 into overtime to help the Calgary Flames defeat the Boston Bruins 3-2 on Thursday night. Moments after Jakob Markstrom stopped David Pastrnak at the other end, Kadri took the puck up ice on a 3-on-1 and fired a shot into the far corner past Linus Ullmark. “I was exhausted by the end of that one, just an absolute track meet,” Kadri said.
Martin Pospisil and Oliver Kylington also scored for Calgary. The Flames, who had lost their previous three games, had won two straight after Markstrom made 32 saves.
With 50 points (20 goals, 30 assists), Kadri leads the Flames and is only six points behind his output from his rookie season in Calgary.
Flames coach Ryan Huska described him as “one of those guys that hates to lose more than he likes to win.” “So that’s why I think you see him elevate his play.”
With two goals from Charlie Coyle, Boston increased their winning streak on the road to 11 games (7-0-4).
“We had opportunities to win the match. That’s hockey. We’re feeling really good about our game, and it’s just an inch or two there,” Coyle remarked.
Ullmark made 27 saves.
We didn’t get the outcome we had hoped for,” he remarked. “We knew what needed to be done to be successful out there and we showed that in the second and the third and we battled back and stuck with it and got a point out of it.”
After two periods, the Bruins were behind 2-1, but in the third, Coyle scored on a backhand-to-forehand play, racing past a flat-footed MacKenzie Weegar and swooping in alone on Markstrom to equalize the game in just 2:33.
At 12:55 in the opening frame, Kylington scored his second goal of the match after receiving a pass from Andrei Kuzmenko and bending the shot under Ullmark’s arm.
At 18:41, Coyle knotted it by taking advantage of a mistake made by Markstrom. He whiffed on a puck after running out of his net to clear it, allowing Coyle to score his 19th goal of the year.
However, Pospisil’s goal gave Calgary the lead back 42 seconds later. Pospisil was there to poke the loose puck in after Ullmark made the initial stop, but Kadri and Connor Zary worked together to bring the ball in front.
Boston outshot Calgary 11-5 in the second period, but both goalies made crucial stops to prevent any goals from being scored.
With his 211th career victory, Markstrom surpasses Tommy Salo to take second position on the list of goaltenders of Swedish descent with the most victories (459). Henrik Lundqvist is first on the list.
“He’s the foundation,” Kadri remarked. “That’s what all great teams have, they have a guy in the crease that can make some timely saves and to win a championship, to win playoff games, to win playoff series, you need timely saves and you need timely goals and we saw both those tonight.”
Kuzmenko had a clear shot from the top of the faceoff circle following a period of persistent pressure, but Ullmark made a glove stop.
Pavel Zacha was stopped twice in quick succession while the Bruins were on the power play. The first time came when he deflected Charlie McAvoy’s point shot, and the second time was when he grabbed the rebound.
Due to the foot injury sustained by defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, Boston called up Ian Mitchell from the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League and started experienced defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk in the starting lineup.
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