PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Flames goalie Jacob Markstrom had a horrid start to the season, allowing four goals in his first game and three in his second. The 31-year-old's next start was October 21 in Detroit. He shutout the Red Wings and then allowed one goal in a win at the Rangers.
Thursday night Markstrom remained in-line with the team nickname, stopping 45 shots including some great lateral movement in a 4-0 Calgary win at PPG Paints Arena. Every Pens player had multiple shots except Brian Boyle and defensemen Chad Ruhwedel, Brian Dumoulin and Marcus Pettersson.
It's the first Flames shutout of the Pens since Ronald Reagan was President, January 1, 1982.
"He played really well," said Pens forward Jake Guentzel. "I thought we had chances. I thought we had looks. It was just one of those nights, hockey is a funny game and it doesn't go in sometimes. Credit to the goaltender, he played well."
"He's obviously really big," said Pens defenseman Mike Matheson. "The knock on big goalies is that sometimes they don't move too well. He was great tonight. A lot of plays where we were able to get him going east-west, side-to-side and open him up hopefully. He did a great job of closing down the angle and making some great saves."
"He was really good tonight," said Pens head coach Mike Sullivan. "You have to give him credit. He made a lot of big saves. We had a number of high-quality chances that we couldn't covert. You have to give him a lot of credit."
"When you play goalies that are top-tier goalies. You have to make it hard on them. You've got take their sight lines away. You have to get traffic at the net. You got to look for second and third opportunities. That was some of the conversations we had with our guys."
Much of the night was a 1-0 Flames lead after Johnny Gaudreau went two-thirds of the ice beating Casey DeSmith high, glove-side 12 minutes into the game. Calgary's Blake Coleman would score 1:04 into the third and then it got away from the Pens and Casey DeSmith. Dillon Dube and Milan Lucic adding goals. Lucic on a puck mishandle by Drew O'Connor at center ice allowing for a 2-on-1 the other way.
In his last eight starts, six dating back to last year, DeSmith has given up 32 goals. He stopped 31 Thursday night.
"He made some high-quality saves in the first couple of periods that kept us in the game," Sullivan said of DeSmith. "I thought our team as a whole, we opened the game up a little bit in the third. I thought we were pressing. Calgary was defending the game hard and they made us play."
Crosby Update
Sidney Crosby participated in an optional morning skate Thursday before the Calgary game.
"The timeline on how we deal with Sid I think we'll keep internally," Sullivan said. "That's something where we make decisions with our medical staff on a daily basis at this point. We're at that stage where Sid is really getting closer and closer."
"A lot of it, quite honestly, is based on Sid's feedback as well on where he's at. We're trying to make sure we put Sid in the best possible position to be successful, and so we make those decisions daily."
Up Next
Last place New Jersey at PPG Paints Arena Saturday night at 7. While in the basement of the Metro, the Devils currently have the same number of wins as the Pens.
