Stars stifle Flames in final frame to set up series finale in Calgary
CBC
The Calgary Flames and Dallas Stars will take their playoff series the distance to a seventh and deciding game.
Dallas doubled the visiting Flames 4-2 on Friday to even up their conference quarterfinal at three wins apiece.
Stars defenceman Miro Heiskanen's goal late in the second period stood up as the game-winner for the Stars, who will try to bounce the Flames from the post-season Sunday in Calgary.
Roope Hintz and Michael Raffl also scored for Dallas with Tyler Seguin adding an empty-net goal in front of a sellout of 18,532 at American Airlines Center.
Stars goalie Jake Oettinger and Flames counterpart Jacob Markstrom both had 36 saves.
Michael Stone had a goal and an assist and Mikael Backlund scored in the second period to draw Calgary even before Heiskanen's game-winner.
WATCH | Heiskanen scores winner:
"A hell of a game," Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said. "Just couldn't get the equalizer."
Calgary (50-21-11) topped the Pacific Division, while the Stars (46-30-6) earned the first wild-card berth in the Western Conference.
The Flames, 25-9-7 at the Saddledome in the regular season, will be under pressure to maintain their mastery of home ice and advance to the second round for the first time since 2015 and just the second time in the last 17 years.
"It's hard to win the last one and obviously a lot of us haven't been past the first round," Flames forward Elias Lindholm said. "Hopefully we get it done Sunday.
"That's why we fought so hard all year, to have home ice in Game 7. We're in a good spot, so we've just got to regroup and come back with a better effort on Sunday. We've got find a way to score more than two goals."
Teams tying a series 3-3 to force a Game 7 own an all-time series record of 88-96, according to NHL statisticians.
Markstrom didn't leave his net for an extra Flames attacker until less than a minute remained in the game as the Flames struggled to sustain offensive-zone pressure.
When a teenaged Chloe Primerano made her debut on the Canadian women’s hockey team last season, Jocelyne Larocque was often the steady force beside her on the blue line.
The Vancouver Canucks announced Friday that they have traded captain Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild.
Canada's Kevin Drury battled his way to a gold medal that left him in tears at a World Cup ski cross event on Friday in Val Thorens, France.
Soccer fans have accused FIFA of a "monumental betrayal" after latest prices for World Cup tickets began to circulate on Thursday.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is “disappointed” that the main arena slated to host ice hockey at February’s Olympics isn’t yet completed with less than two months to go before the Games are scheduled to be played.
A two-year suspension from competitive swimming has forced Penny Oleksiak to answer questions about drug use, train by herself in public pools and defend her legacy as Canada’s most decorated female Olympian.
Hockey, one of the premier events at the Winter Olympics and one that is welcoming NHL players back for the first time in more than a decade, will take place on ice shorter than NHL-regulation size.
Summer McIntosh capped swimming’s U.S. Open with the event record in the women’s 200-metre butterfly on Saturday in Austin, Texas.
Some bronze medals are worth their weight in gold. Valerie Grenier's third-place finish in women's giant slalom at the Mont-Tremblant World Cup certainly fits that category.
The men’s World Cup draw in Washington D.C. was going well for Canada until Pot 4.
The draw for the 2026 World Cup takes place Friday at 12 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Center in Washington, for the purpose of dividing the 48-team field into 12 groups of four. Once the tournament starts, 32 teams will advance from those preliminary groups to the single-elimination knockout rounds.
The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., buzzed with activity and speculation on Thursday in advance of Friday’s all-important draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup.
By the time the management group for the Canadian men’s national hockey team emerges from marathon meetings on Tuesday, as much as 80 per cent of the roster going to Italy next February should be written in pen.