St. Louis Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak, left, from Slovakia, deflects a shot by Calgary Flames' David Jones during third period NHL hockey action in Calgary, Alta., Monday, Dec. 23, 2013.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
December 23, 2013 - 8:23 PM
CALGARY - Joe Colborne scored the only goal of the shootout to give the Calgary Flames an improbable 4-3 come-from-behind win Monday night over the red-hot St. Louis Blues.
In the shootout, Colborne shot first and beat Jaroslav Halak on a deke for his third goal on four attempts this season.
Reto Berra secured the victory in net by denying TJ Oshie, Derek Roy and Magnus Paajarvi.
Calgary's Mark Giordano forced the shootout, dramatically tying the game with five seconds left in the third period.
Patrick Berglund's holding penalty gave Calgary a power play for the final 1:37 of the third. Flames coach Bob Hartley added more pop to his offence by pulling Berra, making it a six-on-four situation.
The ploy worked as Calgary poured on the pressure. At one point after a slick passing sequence, rookie Sean Monahan — staring at an empty net — had the tying goal roll off his stick.
No matter, Hudler's long diagonal pass was hammered in from the face-off dot by Flames captain Giordano, who one-timed a blistering slapshot past Halak to send the sell-out crowd of 19,289 at the Scotiabank Saddledome into a frenzy.
Hudler and Mike Cammalleri also scored for Calgary (14-17-6), which kicked off a five-game homestand. The Flames snapped a three-game winless skid.
The beleagured Flames have battled injury issues all year and the latest casualties announced Monday afternoon was left-winger Curtis Glencross (high ankle sprain) and former Blues defenceman Kris Russell (sprained knee), who will both be out for an extended period after injuries sustained in Pittsburgh on Saturday in the final stop of a five-game road trip.
Kevin Shattenkirk, Jaden Schwartz and Paajarvi scored for St. Louis (24-7-5) in regulation. The Blues took three out of four points in Alberta and head home 5-1-2 in their last eight.
St. Louis scored the lone goal of the first period taking just eight seconds to click on its first power play of the night.
Off a face-off win deep in the Flames end, St. Louis worked the puck around with Brendan Morrow's nifty cross-ice backhand pass finding the tape of Shattenkirk breaking in from the blue-line and the defenceman fired his fifth goal into the open side.
Schwartz scored through a screen as the Blues took a 2-1 lead less than two minutes after Hudler evened the score at 12:06.
Forty-four seconds later, the Blues increased the lead to 3-1 on a goal from their high energy fourth line.
Berra's pass around the boards was intercepted by Adam Cracknell who zipped a pass to Maxim Lapierre in the slot. Lapierre's shot was stopped but Paajarvi corralled the rebound and stuffed in his third of the year.
Trailing 3-1 after two periods, the Flames drew within one at 11:05 when five-foot-nine Paul Byron continued his impressive play, setting up Cammalleri from behind the net for his team-leading 12th goal.
Berra, the busier of the two goalies, had 32 saves to improve to 5-8-2.
Halak made 26 stops and is now 17-6-3.
Notes: Glencross, who earlier in the year missed 15 games with a knee injury, will miss the eight weeks while Russell will miss the next 4-6 weeks. 8 weeks), D Kris Russell (sprained knee, 4-6 weeks), C Blair Jones (knee, indefinite). That left D Derek Smith as the lone healthy scratch... Taking Russell's spot on the Calgary blue-line was Chris Breen.... With Alex Steen (upper body) out for the Blues, 20-year-old Dmitrij Jaskin, recalled from Chicago (AHL), made his season debut and played alongside TJ Oshie and David Backes... Only Hudler, TJ Brodie and Chris Butler have played in all of Calgary's 37 games...
News from © The Canadian Press, 2013