Gustavsson stops 35 shots in first NHL start to lead Senators to 2-1 win over Flames

OTTAWA – Chris Tierney scored the winner late in the third period while Filip Gustavsson stopped 35 shots in his first NHL start as the Ottawa Senators earned a 2-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Monday night.

Tierney scored his fourth of the season but first in 30 games at 17:24 to break a 1-1 tie. That was enough for Gustavsson, who backstopped Ottawa (11-20-3) to its first win in three games but fourth in six contests this season against Calgary.

Ryan Dzingel also scored for Ottawa.

Johnny Gaudreau replied for Calgary (15-15-3) which fell to 4-3-0 under head coach Darryl Sutter. The Flames were playing their third game in four nights and coming off a 2-0 loss Saturday night to Toronto.

Gustavsson, 22, became the fourth different goaltender to start a game this season for Ottawa. The six-foot-two, 183-pound native of Sweden stopped eight shots in place of injured starter Joey Daccord in the Senators’ 3-2 shootout loss to Vancouver on Wednesday night, his NHL debut.

Dzingel had the lone goal of the first at 10:23. He converted on a 2-on-1 with Clark Bishop, beating Jacob Markstrom on a wrist shot for his seventh of the season.

And Gustavsson, a 2016 Pittsburgh second-round pick, made it stand through two periods despite Calgary holding a 26-16 edge in shots on goal. He made a nice stop on Calgary’s Zach Rinaldo just over nine minutes into the second, then denied Flames forward Dillon Dube with 2:34 to play.

Although Markstrom only faced four shots, he made a nice save on Ottawa’s Colin White with under a minute in the frame to keep it a one-goal game to that point.

And that was important as Gaudreau tied the contest at 14:54 of the third. He came off the bench to take a centring pass from Milan Lucic and fired a shot past Gustavsson for his 13th of the season.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published march 22, 2021.