CALGARY
Womens Connor Hellebuyck Jersey , Alberta (AP) It was a bittersweet night for rookie center Mark Jankowski.Jankowski scored four times, and the Calgary Flames finished off a disappointing season with a 7-1 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday.”Not the way we wanted it to end, we want to keep on playing, but definitely a building year,” said the 23-year-old Jankowski, who had just three points in his previous 18 games. ”I just take everything I learned this year from all the vets and use that as fuel in the summer to come back into camp and even better player.”Calgary entered the night in an offensive funk, having mustered only nine goals over the previous nine games, eight of them losses. The seven goals was the club’s biggest offensive outburst since a 7-4 victory over St. Louis on Nov. 13.”It’s one of those things. Tonight, for some reason, everything bounced in and I think we could have had even more,” Flames captain Mark Giordano said. ”It’s nice to end it on that note, but it’s been a tough year and obviously a disappointing year.”Before the game, players from both teams and the officials formed a circle at center ice for a moment of silence for the 15 people who lost their lives in the Humboldt Broncos bus accident.”You have those guys, that community, the team, on your mind all day,” Giordano said. ”We’re one big community
Dmitry Kulikov Jersey , the hockey community, there’s a lot of people feeling this one.”Afterward, the Saddledome crowd broke into a chant of ”Broncos! Broncos!””We talked a lot to our guys about the emotion and the purity of the game,” Flames coach Glen Gulutzan said. ”Just think about the young men on that bus, who would love to be in the seats that we are. That was their goal and we wanted to play as well as we can to honor that.”Spencer Foo, Garnet Hathaway and Johnny Gaudreau also scored for the Flames (37-35-10), who missed the playoffs for the seventh time in the past nine seasons. A big factor was Calgary’s 17-20-4 home record, its worst mark since 2000-01.Cody Eakin scored for Vegas (51-24-7), which finished first in the Pacific Division and will open the playoffs on home ice against Los Angeles. Vegas is the first modern-era expansion team in any of the four North America pro spots to win its division in its first season.”Right from the start it’s been a fun season,” goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury said. ”It’s fun to be a part of this team and this organization through it all. I’m really proud of the way this team has done throughout the season. Playoffs are fun, intense, exciting. I’m looking forward to getting it going.”Golden Knights veteran James Neal was impressed at how quickly the team gelled after being thrown together at the expansion draft.”What impressed me most about our group is the consistency we played with, the way we rolled four lines, we counted on each player and needed each guy every night and every guy brought their game,” he said.Down 3-0 after the first period, Vegas scored 51 seconds into the second. But the Flames responded with three more unanswered goals before the period ended.Jankowski secured his first NHL hat trick with a short-handed goal at 18:06, bringing over 100 hats raining down onto the ice.He completed the scoring at 1:32 of the third. It was Calgary’s first power-play goal in 14 games
Youth Dustin Byfuglien Jersey , snapping a 0-for-35 skid.Jon Gillies had 26 stops for Calgary. Fleury gave up six goals on 18 shots before being replaced to start the third period. Malcolm Subban had 12 stops in relief.NOTES: Both teams wore Humboldt Broncos decals on their helmet. The Flames also announced they were donating their $84,055 half of the 50/50 prize pot to those affected by Friday’s tragedy.UP NEXTGolden Knights: Face Los Angeles in the first round of the playoffs.Flames: Offseason. Hindsight is 43/35 for the Columbus Blue Jackets.That’s how many goals and assists William Karlsson put up for the Vegas Golden Knights after the Blue Jackets let him go in the most recent NHL expansion draft. They also sent first- and second-round draft picks to Vegas to unload David Clarkson’s contract and hold on to forward Josh Anderson and goaltender Joonas Korpisalo.“I think we’ve looked at probably 100 times already that, ‘Could we have done something different the last time around?'” Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said. “Probably not. You’re going to make some mistakes and you might let the wrong guy go. You do your studying, you do your evaluation of your players and you do your projections and it’s not an exact science.”Maybe the second time’s the charm.NHL teams face another expansion draft in 2021, when Seattle enters the league. And the Seattle GM, whoever that turns out to be, probably won’t receive the same kind of windfall George McPhee picked up in 2017 to help the Golden Knights make a run all the way to the Stanley Cup Final because some important lessons have been learned.“We might get to a situation where we’re like, ‘Boy I don’t want to lose any of these guys,’ so a team may have to do it again,” Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill said. “But we’ve lived it now and I think we’ll have a better understanding of it. And if you’re going to (make a trade), you’re going to make sure it’s for the right person. You’re going to be like: ‘I’m giving up a lot of assets here. Is this the right thing to do?'”McPhee held all the leverage that summer, and he stockpiled talent as a result. Because only seven forwards, three defensemen and a goaltender (or seven skaters at any position and a goaltender) could be protected, a lot of deep teams were stuck with core players unprotected and willing to do almost anything to keep them.Just some of the “fear factor” moves: The Wild traded prospect Alex Tuch and let center Erik Haula go to Vegas to keep Matt Dumba. The Panthers traded Reilly Smith and lost Jonathan Marchessault. The Islanders traded a first-round pick to get rid of Mikhail Grabovski’s contract. The Ducks traded Shea Theodore to clear Clayton Stoner’s salary and keep Sami Vatanen and Josh Manson. The Penguins even sent a future second-round pick to ensure Vegas would take goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.Chuck Fletcher, who was Minnesota’s GM, figured out the hard way that expansion means every team loses something. Now with Philadelphia, his approach will likely be to lose as little as possible to Seattle.“No matter what you do you’re going to lose a good player
http://www.officialhockeyjetsshop.com/authentic-adidas-jacob-trouba-jersey ,” Fletcher said. “You either let them make the choice for you or you try to help them out by making sure you’re keeping the things you want to keep. It was a great process to go through and I’m sure there were some lessons learned, but at the end of the day, if you have too many players than you can protect, you’ve got to pick your poison.”A popular choice last time? Teams giving up players to clear salary-cap space. That was the impetus for the Fleury move and others, but so much time to prepare could reduce the need for those trades in the summer of 2021.“That’s just one thing that I see could happen, that if the teams aren’t financially strapped against the cap then they don’t have to make those sacrifices of young players to get the cap relief,” Vancouver Canucks GM Jim Benning said.With two full offseasons until Seattle can plunder 30 NHL teams (Vegas will not participate), a lot of GMs are already planning ahead. Offices in Columbus and Dallas have already been the scene of some long-range preparation while acknowledging a lot can change between now and then. Nill said teams will likely need to decide whether someone is a “core player” or someone who isn’t going to be around in the future.All GMs will need to grapple with the impact of no-movement clauses in player contracts that the NHL decreed must be protected in any expansion draft. Ottawa lost defenseman Marc Methot, in part, because Dion Phaneuf wouldn’t waive his no-movement clause. Now that GMs know the rules, deals through 2021 could be affected.“You’re reluctant to give no-move clauses at any time, but certainly with knowing what your expansion protected list is going to be, I think that will make teams a little more cautious,” Penguins GM Jim Rutherford said.According to PuckPedia , there are already 36 players with no-movement clauses for 2021-22. The Penguins, Stars and Blackhawks lead the league with four players each. Don’t be surprised if GMs attempt to change some of those situations to put themselves in a better spot.“You don’t want to fill your protection list with guys that you have to protect because of the clauses in their contract,” Kekalainen said. “You want to fill it with the guys you want to protect
Austin Czarnik Jersey Womens , so you want to leave that option to yourself.”DE-IMPROVED PENGUINSAfter sitting in last place in the Eastern Conference on Nov. 20, Pittsburgh is 6-2-2 in its past 10 games to surge up the standings. Backup goaltender Casey DeSmith, who has stepped up for injured starter Matt Murray, is a big part of that with his 2.10 goals-against average and .927 save percentage over that time.“I’m not surprised,” Rutherford said. “Casey took the long road to the National Hockey League. He worked at it. He’s worked very close with Mike Buckley, our goalie coach, and he’s a goalie that really worked on his fundamentals.”The Penguins activated Murray off injured reserve Wednesday. Even with Murray’s return, don’t expect Pittsburgh to keep DeSmith on the bench for long.“You have to have two goalies because if you want to have a long run in the spring, you can’t wear your No. 1 goalie out,” Rutherford said.GAME OF THE WEEKThe top two teams in the Atlantic Division face off Thursday when the Toronto Maple Leafs visit the Tampa Bay Lightning.LEADERSGoals: Alex Ovechkin (Washington), 25; Assists: Mikko Rantanen (Colorado), 39; Points: Rantanen, 52; Ice time: Seth Jones (Columbus), 26:29; Goals-against average: Pekka Rinne (Nashville), 1.91; Save percentage: Rinne, 9.32.