According to his teammates and coach Gerard Gallant

Bruce Cassidy watched from afar as Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy stoned Travis Zajac on a breakaway and knew that was the kind of save teams need in the playoffs.One night later Vancouver Canucks Hats Womens , the Boston coach saw up close how Tuukka Rask got his blocker on Mitch Marner’s breakaway attempt on the way to another Bruins victory.”Every team needs goaltending,” Cassidy said. ”On the road, you’re going to need a little extra at some point. We got it.”The Bruins aren’t the only team getting great goaltending at crucial moments as the first round wraps up. While Rask has them up 3-1 on Toronto, Vasilevskiy is the biggest reason Tampa Bay has the New Jersey Devils on the brink of elimination and Braden Holtby has stabilized the Washington Capitals to tie their series against Columbus going into Game 5 Saturday (3 p.m. EDT, NBC/NBCSN).After a high-scoring start to the Stanley Cup playoffs, netminders are making spectacular saves when called upon. A lot of the routine stops, too. Even though postseason scoring is up 7 percent from last year, Vegas’ Marc-Andre Fleury and San Jose’s Martin Jones combined to allow just seven goals in eight games – two four-game sweeps – to set up a second-round showdown. Rask and Vaslievskiy have each given up just nine through five games and Holtby has stopped 63 of 67 shots since replacing Philipp Grubauer in goal.”Your job obviously every game as a goaltender is to limit bad goals,” Holtby said Friday. ”Your goalie’s there to calm things down at the right minutes – make a big save here and there.”Big saves are a bigger deal this time of year than volume, considering how many harmless shots are flicked at the net from long range. Sometimes those go in, like when Boston’s Torrey Krug floated a weak shot past Frederik Andersen in Game 4 Thursday night.Few of those have happened in these playoffs against Rask, Holtby and Vasilevskiy, a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, the NHL’s top goalie award. Rask’s 2.27 goals-against average and .926 save percentage are indicative of just how solid he has been in giving the Bruins a chance to close out the Maple Leafs on Saturday (8 p.m. EDT, NBC).”He’s one of the best goalies in the world and gives us an opportunity to win every night Custom Vancouver Canucks Jerseys ,” Bruins winger Brad Marchand said of Rask, who won the Vezina in 2014.Rask might be salty that he wasn’t one of the three Vezina finalists, finishing behind Nashville’s Pekka Rinne, Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy, who get a postseason trip to the awards show in Las Vegas. Vasilevskiy earned it with a strong first half of the season, struggled late and is back in form with Atlantic Division-champion Tampa Bay able advance with a win Saturday (3 p.m. EDT, NBC/NBCSN).Lightning coach Jon Cooper doesn’t think Vasilevskiy played poorly in the final quarter of the regular season as much as his team’s defensive game sagged. That has changed against the Devils, though Vasilevskiy has bailed out Tampa Bay on a few occasions.”When your team’s playing better defense it helps your goaltender out and he doesn’t have to make as many highlight-reel saves,” Cooper said. ”I think what you’re seeing in the playoffs is a group that’s been determined to play both ends of the ice, and in turn that’s helping Vasilevskiy out.”Game 4 Thursday was Holtby’s first time allowing fewer than two goals in a start since Nov. 18. But the 2016 Vezina winner insists he doesn’t feel any different than before his time off to reset his game in March.He just looks like his old self.”I think it’s got him to a place where he feels like Braden Holtby again, like he trusts his game, he trusts what he’s put in,” coach Barry Trotz said. ”He’s focused on the right things and it’s allowed him to get to a place where I think he feels very comfortable.”STEPPING UPWhen Bruins star Patrice Bergeron’s streak of 104 consecutive playoff games ended because of an undisclosed injury, unheralded Riley Nash excelled centering the top line of Marchand and David Pastrnak in Game 4 in Toronto.”He plays a two-way game,” Bruins center David Krejci said. ”He’s got good skills as well www.washingtoncapitalsteamshop.com , so he fit well on that line.”Cassidy said a decision on Bergeron playing in Game 5 won’t come until Saturday. Toronto center Nazem Kadri will return from a three-game suspension for boarding Tommy Wingels.Lightning winger Ryan Callahan is a game-time decision against the Devils, who are likely to be without top defenseman Sami Vatanen.Columbus center Alexander Wennberg skated Friday and could return after missing three games after a hit to the head from Tom Wilson. Washington won’t have winger Andre Burakovsky for the rest of the series because of an upper-body injury that Trotz said requires ”minor” surgery.Without Burakovsky, Chandler Stephenson earned the promotion to the Capitals’ top line and has thrived with significant ice time alongside Nicklas Backstrom and T.J. Oshie.”It’s something you only dream of,” Stephenson said. ”Growing up watching them and then finally playing with them, it’s quite the special feeling.”CLOSE THE DEALGoing through a grueling run to the 2015 Cup Final taught Cooper a lesson about the benefits of finishing a team off in elimination games. The same goes for the banged-up Bruins because they’re on a crash course to face the Lightning in the second round.”If you have a chance to win a series early, do it,” Cooper said. ”Just to get the mental and physical rest, and then (have) all the other series go deep.”—AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen in Boston, Mitch Stacy in Columbus, Ohio, and Fred Goodall in Tampa, Florida, contributed. CALGARY, Alberta — In search of their fourth straight win, the Calgary Flames will host the Chicago Blackhawks (6-5-3) at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday.Following a disappointing 9-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins at home on Oct. 25 Washington Capitals T-Shirts Womens , the Flames (8-5-1) bounced back with a much better effort two nights later at the Saddledome, although they fell 4-3 in a shootout to the Washington Capitals.The Flames then won back-to-back road games over the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres before rallying with five goals in the third period on Thursday at home to beat the visiting Colorado Avalanche 6-5.Article continues below ...“The guys have been very resilient here recently and that’s a good attribute to have,” said Calgary coach Bill Peters, while adding that his players got away from what they do best in the loss to the Penguins. “It didn’t pay off for us, so I think we’ve learned our lesson in that regard. Now we have the ability to stay with it and keep doing it and be patient … and be patient in an intelligent fashion and that’s what we’ve been here in the last couple weeks.”Flames captain Mark Giordano helped lead the come-from-behind charge over Colorado with a goal and three assists.“Down 4-1, that’s a big comeback in the third, for sure,” said the veteran defenseman, who has put up eight points (one goal, seven assists) in his past four games. “It just felt like we weren’t even satisfied tying it up, to be honest. We kept coming, we kept pushing. I felt like even when we went up we kept pushing and we got another one, which ended up being a huge goal.”According to Giordano, the embarrassing loss to the Penguins might have just been what the Flames needed to turn things around.“It was a good kick for us,” he said. “Any time you get beat like that at home Washington Capitals Hoodies Womens , it could go either way. I thought we responded well. We looked at that game and realized if we kept playing like that, there would be more of that.”Meanwhile, the Blackhawks will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing 4-0 setback in Edmonton to the Oilers on Thursday, just one night after they fell 4-2 to the Canucks in Vancouver.“It’s just one of those things that builds character, and we’ve got to stay with it and find ways to build confidence from within no matter what,” said Chicago captain Jonathan Toews after the loss to the Oilers. “Tough results these last two nights. There’s some good there, but obviously still a lot of room to improve.”Toews also noted that he and his teammates will have to find a way to break out of their recent slump that has seen them go 0-3-1 in their past four outings.“That’s our job is to kind of rise above that,” Toews said. “We’ve talked a lot about wanting to be that team that’s resilient and sticks with it in games when we’re down, especially on the road, that we can find ways to win in ugly games where maybe we’re not the dominant team.”Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said that the message to his players was for them not to be satisfied with their recent play.“Everything we tried to do (against the Oilers), nothing worked,” Quenneville said. “We’ll continue trying things when it’s not going in our direction. We need to work, we need some production and we need to get excitement in the game when we’re generating chances.”

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