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The Boston Bruins were less than two seconds from a movie-like ending of a victory against the Calgary Flames on Friday night. With the Flames on a late-game power play, Bruin-turned-Flame Dougie Hamilton took a slashing penalty on Boston forward Brad Marchand. The slash gave No. 63 a breakaway on which he scored against Karri Ramo, and the down-but-never-quite-out B’s had to kill off the remaining 1:06 on the clock, and their sixth win in the last seven contests was theirs.
But like the Bruins, the Flames aren’t exactly known for going down without a fight.
With their net empty and a 6-on-5 advantage to their name, Jiri Hudler banged a loose puck through Tuukka Rask, on in relief of Jonas Gustavsson after Gustavsson’s early hook behind his 8-of-11 showing, with just 1.2 seconds left to play in the third period.
If this story sounds familiar, that’s because it is. It was in the Bruins’ visit to Calgary last year that the Flames tied the game up with under five minutes to go -- from Hudler, of course -- before TJ Brodie scored the game-winner with under two seconds to play in the four-on-four overtime.
A season later, a similar result, as the Flames secured the win in the overtime behind former Boston College Eagle standout Johnny Gaudreau’s third of the game with help from Hamilton following a mindblowingly bad turnover in the attacking zone from B’s captain Zdeno Chara.
The Bruins twice fought their way out of a deficit in the game, including a successful climb out of a 2-0 hole with goals from Matt Beleskey and Brad Marchand, and again when the Flames pushed it out 3-2 behind Zdeno Chara’s equalizer 26 seconds after the Flames’ third goal.
Rask stopped all but two of the 26 shots thrown his way in relief of Gustavsson in the losing effort, while Ramo improved to 8-8-1 on the year with a 34-of-38 victorious showing.
NOTES: Bruins forward Matt Beleskey’s two-point night was his first since Oct. 27… B’s winger Loui Eriksson extended his point streak to four games with a two-assist night (zero goals, five assists)... B’s coach Claude Julien made an in-game change in goal for the first time all year... The Bruins went a perfect 4-for-4 on the penalty kill in this game… This was the second hat trick of Johnny Gaudreau’s NHL career (his first one came on Dec. 22, 2014 against the Los Angeles Kings… Gaudreau became just the second player in Flames history to score his third goal of a hat trick with an overtime goal… Calgary forward Matt Stajan played in his 800th NHL game.
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The Bruins will conclude their three-game swing of Western Canada with a Saturday night visit to the Vancouver Canucks. With two of a possible four points on the trip thus far, the Black and Gold will have a chance to take advantage of a slumping Vancouver squad that has jump two wins in their last 10 games, along with just three wins in 11 home games in total this season.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Boston Chapter of the Pro Hockey Writers Association since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.