This season, it’s been the Calgary Flames who have made it a habit of coming up big in the third period, winning their share of games this way.
On Friday, the Anaheim Ducks took a page out of the Flames playbook, scoring five goals in the final 20 minutes to defeat Calgary 6-3.
NOTE: The #NHLDucks five goals in the third period tie a franchise record for goals in the final period (1/23/04 vs. MIN). #ANAvsCGY
— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) February 21, 2015
The Flames had the lead going into the final period. In fact, they had a 2-0 advantage at one point. And then they fell apart. The loss prevents them from leapfrogging the Vancouver Canucks, losers earlier Friday evening in New Jersey, in the Pacific Division standings.
Meanwhile, the Ducks move to 79 points, 10 ahead of Vancouver in the division.
“I think we were [desperate],” Ryan Getzlaf told NHL.com.
“We need to be at this time. I think everyone else is desperate right now and if you’re not playing that way you’re going to lose a lot of games as we’ve seen in the last two weeks here. It was nice to get one win and try to get this thing rolling back the other way again.”
The Ducks, with six different scorers on the night, went from trailing by a goal to up by two in the span of only 5:22 in the third period. They extended that lead to three goals.
“From the bench, I could feel that, I don’t know, we didn’t have our energy,” said Flames head coach Bob Hartley. “In the third period, that’s by far the worst third period we’ve played all year.”
