Poehling has two points, Ducks hang on to keep Flames winless
Forward breaks tie in third with shorthanded goal, gets injured on play
By Laurence Heinen
NHL.com Independent Correspondent
CALGARY -- Ryan Poehling scored a short-handed goal to break a tie at 5:35 of the third period, and the Anaheim Ducks held on for a 4-2 win against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday.
After sliding a shot under goalie Dustin Wolf's pad, Poehling crashed hard into the net and stayed down before being helped off the ice.
“It was a huge goal for us,” Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe said. “Obviously, it gave us some momentum, too, but it’s tough to see him go into the post like that. Hopefully he’s okay, so we’ll see what happens.”
Anaheim forward Cutter Gauthier played just five shifts in the first period before leaving with an upper-body injury.
“Both guys we lost tonight, we’ll get back (to Anaheim) tomorrow, we’ll get evaluated,” Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville said. “We’ll see how they present on Monday. We’ve got our fingers crossed, but I’m not sure right now.”
Poehling also had an assist for the Ducks (4-1-0), who won their second straight game. LaCombe, Frank Vatrano and Nikita Nesterenko also scored, and Ville Husso made 27 saves in his first start of the season.
“It’s always nice to start with the win,” Husso said. “I think we battled though all 60 minutes. A couple guys dropped from the lineup and big guys stepping in there. They battled hard, played hard, didn’t give anything easy for us. We had to earn it today, so a lot of credit for our guys playing back-to-back and not giving too many good looks for them.”
Aydar Suniev scored his first NHL goal for the Flames (0-5-0), who are the only team in the NHL without a point this season. Matt Coronato had two assists, and Wolf made 24 saves.
The Flames are 0-5-0 for the first time in franchise history.
“I think every game we’ve played this year, we’ve slowly been getting better and that’s the most important thing,” Calgary coach Ryan Huska said. “If you get better every day and you commit to what you’re supposed to do and you focus on your process and how you’re supposed to handle things and what you look like when you’re winning games, eventually we’ll start seeing points in the win column.”
LaCombe scored on the power play at 10:02 of the first period to put the Ducks up 1-0. After Judd Caulfield fanned on a pass from Leo Carlsson, the puck went right to LaCombe, who lifted a shot over Wolf’s blocker.
“(I was) just trying to follow the play there and the puck kind of fell through there and then just out front, so definitely lucky,” Lacombe said.
Morgan Frost countered with his second goal of the season at 15:03 to pull the Flames into a 1-1 tie. He skated in behind LaCombe and took a pass from Coronato before tucking a shot past Husso’s right pad inside the far post.
“I think we were definitely better tonight,” Coronato said. “We've had good stretches, but it's still about playing the full 60. We’ve got to be better in the third.”
Vatrano scored at 19:15 to put Anaheim back up 2-1. After Poehling redirected Noah Warren’s point shot, the puck went in off Vatrano, who was battling for position in front of the net with Flames defenseman Jake Middleton.
An apparent goal by Flames defenseman Yan Kuznetsov was waved off at 11:27 of the second period after Anaheim challenged and video review determined that forward Joel Farabee was offside on the play.
Suniev took a pass from behind the net from Coronato and squeezed a sharp-angle shot to the short side past Husso at 17:54 to make the score 2-2.
“I saw that opening there, just trying to shoot there and it went in,” Suniev said. “It’s so great. You dream about it, scoring your first goal, and here it is. Thanks, Matty, for that pass. But, yeah, I was so happy for that.”
Nesterenko swatted a goal-mouth scramble past Wolf at 17:03 of the third period for the 4-2 final.
“The puck was bouncing all over the place for everybody,” Quenneville said. “Everybody was fighting for space. It wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take the two points because we worked hard.”
NOTES: Mikael Granlund had an assist on Anaheim’s first goal as both he and LaCombe extended their season-opening point streaks to five games. Granlund has six points (two goals, four assists) in his streak, and LaCombe has five points (one goal, four assists) during his run. … Anaheim is 4-1-0 for the fifth time in franchise history, following 4-1-0 starts in 2019-20, 2014-15, 2013-14 and 2011-12.
