TOUGH ONE TO LOSE

It happened all too quickly - and at a bad time.
"I was turning up near the wall, trying to make a play,'' said Johnny Gaudreau, among the highest, most intuitive offensive IQ players the game currently has on offer. "His stick kinda got caught between my hands.
"I thought I had a step on him there.
"Next thing you know, the puck's bouncing all over the place, I'm kinda losing my footing, they go down 3-on-2, the puck's under Smitty and they found a way to poke it in."

Attempting to wriggle and spin away from a crowding Justin Braun, game tied 2-2, the will-'o-the-wisp Flames winger is bundled over by the San Jose defenceman, setting the Sharks off in the opposite direction.
Moments later, Joonas Donskoi prods a loose puck underneath goaltender Mike Smith - amidst some preliminary confusion that perhaps a referee's whistle had been blown prior to the puck trickling over the red line - to re-establish a lost Sharks' lead.
Only 2:48 remains.
"Just a tough play,'' said Gaudreau, set up by the ever-industrious Garnet Hathaway, 2-on-1, for the game-tying strike less than 10 minutes earlier. "I've probably got to get it in deep but that's the way it goes sometimes."
The late decider was scored very much against the current, the locals putting a sub-par second period behind them and a mix-'n-match of lines to dominate and square matters through the third.

"You can't turn back,'' said Calgary coach Glen Gulutzan of the winning goal. "You can't turn back with three minutes left. You've gotta play forward.
"We needed to get points. We needed to take that into overtime. We're good 3-on-3. So we can't turn back."
The 3-2 loss ends a four-game run of points for the Flames.
Old bugaboos crept back into their game, particularly during the middle stanza. Uneven play at home. Turnovers. Powerplay woes - zero-for-three Thursday, including a 38-second 5-on-3, makes the Flames 2-for-their-last 32 holding a man advantage.
"You don't lose the game on one play,'' reminded captain Mark Giordano. "There's a lot of things we've got to sharpen up. No. 1, our powerplay's not going right now. Special teams again.
"We gave them one. And we didn't get any. We've got to clean it up.
"Pretty even game. They had chances. But we had our chances, too. And then we give them one with, whatever it was, three minutes left. It's tough to recover."
Smith, meanwhile, was miffed at himself.
"If I felt it,'' he said of Donskoi's winner, "I would've covered it. So no, I didn't feel it.
"Tonight, close game, you've gotta be at your best. The second goal is a penalty cause I trip a guy. Then the last goal, it's got to be stopped.
"It's a stoppable puck. Control the puck. So it's on me tonight.
"I had no idea where the puck was, to be honest. I didn't know where it was so I just hoped it was under me somewhere.
"We were in a hockey game tonight, a close one, and in close ones you can't have brain farts. It came back to bite us tonight."

Gulutzan had no beef with the validity of the game winner.
"(The referee) said the whistle didn't go,'' he explained. "I thought it was on his pad and it should'nt (been counted).
"But if you look at it, it's not covered. It's sitting between his legs. So that's what he said - it's never covered, sitting there free, so he didn't blow the whistle."
The victory allowed the Sharks to slide a pair of points ahead of the Flames in both the Pacific Division and claustrophobic Western Conference.
"You want points,'' said Gulutzan flatly. "For me, I'm walking over here it's a lot like the Chicago game last year. It's 2-2, they take a shot late and it goes, 3-2, and you get nothing.
"Those things sting.
"They leave a mark.
"It was a hard-fought game. They're a good team. But I thought we should've got points tonight."