Alex Ovechkin scored his 891st career goal, moving him four away from passing Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record, and Dylan Strome broke a third-period tie on Tuesday night to lead the Washington Capitals to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins.
The only thing more unkind to the Calgary Flames than the St. Louis Blues of late has been video review.
Tuesday night was no different, as the Flames’ hopes of keeping up with the Blues’ tenth win in a row were dashed by a crucial video review that brought back memories of 2004.
Down 1-0 after the first period in Utah, a Mikael Backlund centring pass early in the second period bounced off defenceman Nick DeSimone and towards the net.
Karel Vejmelka kicked the puck out with his left pad, but the league sought to clarify whether it actually crossed the line first, much like in 2004 when Martin Gelinas appeared to score in Game 6 of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final.
An overhead camera angle shown on the Sportsnet broadcast had many Flames fans convinced the puck was clear of the goal line, but league officials disagreed.
Much like the two video reviews against Dallas that cost Calgary its only other regulation loss in the last eight games, it seemed like this one could also easily have gone in the Flames’ favour.
Alas, it didn’t.
Just over 30 seconds later, Barrett Hayton put Utah up 2-0, and the hosts never looked back.
Although a Rasmus Andersson blast from the point midway through the period set the stage for yet another Flames comeback, Vejmelka stole the show from there in a game the Flames would lose 3-1, thanks to an empty netter.
“This one sucks,” said Andersson, whose club fell seven back of St. Louis with two games in hand and eight games remaining.
“I thought we played good enough to get out of here with (at least a tie) but we just couldn’t get that tying goal. Their goalie made some huge saves.”
Asked to sum up the three-game road trip that saw the Flames go 1-1-1, a dejected Andersson was frank.
“It’s desperate times,” said Andersson, whose club got off to a slow start following an emotional shootout win in Denver the night before.
“We got three out of six points. At this time we probably needed one or two more points, so not good enough.”