Monday night featured two games, both of which needed overtime to settle the score. Here are a few things we learned.
Elliott’s losing skid continues
Calgary Flames goaltender Brian Elliott walked into Barclays Center Monday hoping to halt his losing skid at six. But despite a pretty strong 25-save performance, the netminder couldn’t pull off the win as the Flames fell to the New York Islanders 2-1 in overtime.
On Saturday, Sportsnet’s Rory Boylen looked at the Flames’ goaltending situation and wondered whether the team might benefit from a tandem situation.
Two nights later, we’re still pondering the question as Elliott, who was slated to be the club’s undisputed No. 1 netminder at the start of the season, suffered his seventh straight loss for a 3-9-1 record on the season. (Chad Johnson, by comparison, has a 7-4-1 record.)
By all accounts, Elliott played a strong game on Monday night. The Islanders’ lone goal in regulation came on a gorgeous play between Josh Bailey and John Tavares, with the latter sending a picture-perfect shot into the net as the Islanders capitalized on their first shot of the game.
Sean Monahan scored Calgary’s only goal, sparking a rallying effort and showing some fight from an exhausted club at the tail end of a six-game, nine-day road trip that began and ended with back-to-backs.
Monahan’s OT-forcing marker earned the Flames a point in the standings to finish off the trip with a 3-2-1 record.
“I think anytime you’re over .500 on a long one it’s successful,” Mark Giordano told reporters after the game. “I think we can build off of getting a point there.”
Elliott had the same attitude.
“Sooner or later, that win’s going to come for me,” Elliott told reporters after the game.
The Flames’ next game will be back on home ice as they host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night.
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Jankowski makes his debut
It’s been a long road to the NHL for Mark Jankowski. His name has often been accompanied by a few question marks in terms of his NHL potential since being a surprise first-round draft pick in 2012.
Billed as a bit of a project with a lot of potential, Jankowski showed continual improvement over the course of his four-year NCAA career with Providence College, and has translated that into AHL success to the tune of a nearly point-per-game pace through the first 13 games of the season in Stockton.
Jankowski was officially called up by the club on Friday, but sat for the weekend before finally dressing Monday night.
Now, the 6-foot-4, 202-pound forward can finally say he made it to the big leagues — complete with a little rookie initiation to start things off.
Though the 22-year-old didn’t get his name on the score sheet, he put forth a strong effort with some good net-front presence and showed glimpses of his solid two-way game through just over 10 minutes of ice time.
The rookie admitted nerves were a factor to start, and when asked to evaluate his own performance, Jankowski had this to say:
“I definitely don’t think I played my best game, but I don’t think I played my worst game, either,” he said. “There’s a lot of things I can improve on.”
No word yet on whether or not Jankowski will get a chance to make those improvements on Wednesday night.
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Blues stay hot
The St. Louis Blues have been on a roll lately, and they continued that hot streak against the Dallas Stars Monday night.
The Blues have now won six of their last seven games thanks to their well-oiled offence, having scored at least three goals in eight straight games for a combined 29 goals during that time.
Monday’s 4-3 OT win over the Stars means they now also have a point in 10 consecutive home games, and are just two points behind the Chicago Blackhawks for top spot in the Western Conference.
One major contributor has been Robby Fabbri, who opened the scoring against the Stars. Fabbri has been nearly unstoppable since being a healthy scratch on Nov. 10.
OK. We said nearly unstoppable. He couldn’t quite get the puck past Antti Niemi’s right pad on this one:
Another successful scorer has been David Perron. His goal Monday night extended his point streak to eight straight games — the NHL’s best personal scoring streak at the moment.
He’s got 11 goals over the course of his point streak.
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Jamie makes Penny proud
Though the Stars lost, we just have to show you this gorgeous goal from the Dallas defenceman Jamie Oleksiak.
It was the first of two goals on the night for the 23-year-old blue liner, and his third career goal.
While it caught the attention of many hockey fans, the best reaction came from four-time Olympic medallist Penny Oleksiak, who just so happens to be Jamie’s younger sister.
The teen swimmer grabbed hold of the country with her record-setting performance in Rio this past summer. Her performance rendered her brother speechless.
Now, it was Penny’s turn to shout out her brother’s highlight-reel moment on Twitter.
