After two straight wins, the Calgary Flames lost against the Washington Capitals in DC. Jakub Vrana’s first career hat-trick led the 2018 Stanley Cup champions to their fourth straight victory.
“I’m just trying to keep working hard and keep working on my shot,” Vrana said. “Focus on the right things. We’ve been playing great as a team.”
Whether it was because the World-Series winning Washington Nationals attended the match or something else, the home team didn’t start the game well.
Andrew Mangiapane brought the lead to the guests at 5:40 of the first, after Matthew Tkachuk’s assists. But instead of keeping in the same manner, and using the momentum, the Flames just stopped.
And then Vrana took matters in his hands.
The equalizer came at 11:01, with the 23-year old left-winger, executed a 2-on-1 rush following a sweet pass by his teammate Evgeny Kuznetsov.
“That’s my bread and butter,” Kuznetsov said of the pass. “I see him wide open, and when you have a guy that hot you’ve just got to get it to him and he will deliver it.”
Exactly 4:07 later, Vrana added another goal to his account, this time beating the Flames goalie Cameron Talbot from the left circle.
However, Calgary managed to strike back with just 1.6 seconds left, and to make this an even contest. Oliver Kylington sent a shot from the point, but Elias Lindholm deflected the puck to make it 2-all.
Fireworks in the first frame forced both sides to be more careful in the second. Goalies Talbot and Samsonov were in the middle of attention, but eventually, Vrana once again struck. With 4:55, the spectators once again saw Kuznetsov’s creativity, when he found his teammate perfectly, setting him an ideal opportunity to score. Talbot saved the first shot, but couldn’t do the same with Vrana’s rebound and the Capitals were ahead once again.
Early on in the third period, Mickael Backlund received a penalty, and the hosts routinely used that power play, thus closing this event. Lars Eller’s goal at 2:20 put an end on Flames’ hopes, although there was still enough time on the clock.
“We needed that [penalty] kill in the third. We needed to keep it at 3-2 there. They got a little bit of wiggle room, and then we couldn’t find a way to get the next one. To me, that was a big power-play goal that they got,” explained coach Bill Peters following the match.
The Flames are 8-7-2, and the last five games they played were all on the road. They’ve opened the journey with two straight losses against the Jets in OT and the Hurricanes but bounced back with an OT win in Nashville and Columbus. Calgary now has a four-game homestand, which starts this Tuesday against Arizona Coyotes. After that, Peters’ team awaits the NJ Devils, St. Louis Blues, and the Dallas Stars.
Meanwhile, the Capitals (11-2-3) face Florida Panthers on the road this Thursday. After that, they play with the Golden Knights at home.
