CALGARY — Nine years after being drafted by the L.A. Kings, Danny Taylor finally earned his first-ever National Hockey League win on Sunday with the Calgary Flames.
Making just his second career NHL start, Danny Taylor stopped 29-of-31 shots he faced to backstop the Flames to a 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks.
``I’m a big visualizer so I’ve seen it a few times in my head,’’ said Taylor, who was chosen by the Kings in the seventh round (221st overall) of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. ``To actually go through it, it’s pretty cool. I’m very happy obviously. A lot of credit has to go to the guys in front of me. They played so well. They cleared a lot of rebounds.’’
Calgary coach Bob Hartley was pleased to see Taylor bounce back with a great effort after allowing four goals on 37 shots during a 4-0 road loss to the Phoenix Coyotes in his only other NHL start on Feb. 18.
``I felt that he was nervous in the first period after a couple shots, but after this he regained his composure,’’ Hartley said. ``He was solid for the entire game.
``It’s a big moment — first victory. He’ll remember that one for a long time.’’
Jarome Iginla scored the game-winning goal at 12:36 of the third period to lead the Flames (8-8-4) to the win over the Canucks (11-6-4).
After scoring just once in his first 16 games of the season, Iginla now has five goals in the past four contests.
Mike Cammalleri scored a pair of goals for the Flames, who snapped a two-game losing streak. Lee Stempniak finished with a goal and an assist, while Jiri Hudler set up a pair of goals.
Jannik Hansen had a goal and an assist for the Canucks, who have lost three of their past four games. Chris Higgins also scored for Vancouver, which beat the L.A. Kings 5-2 one night earlier at home.
``I don’t think it’s a game that got away,’’ said Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault. ``I’m really proud of the way that we competed and battled tonight. We never used excuses, went out and played really hard, and in my opinion we deserved a better outcome.’’
Roberto Luongo made 21 saves in the Vancouver net in a losing cause.
Due to a snow storm, the Canucks didn’t even arrive at the Calgary airport until 3:30 p.m., just 2-1/2 hours before game time.
Nonetheless, it was Vancouver that opened the scoring at 7:49 of the first period when Higgins took a breakaway pass from Hansen and then snapped a shot to the blocker side past Taylor.
``Once we showed up a couple hours before it was all business and guys got ready,’’ said Vancouver forward Alex Burrows.
The Flames pulled even late in the first when Cammalleri wired a shot from just inside the blue-line past Luongo. The veteran Vancouver netminder actually got a piece of the puck with his glove hand, but it still managed to sneak past him and into the net.
Early in the second period, Luongo made a great kick save with his left pad to stop a shot off the stick of Sven Baertschi. Seconds later at the other end of the ice, Hansen batted a rebound out of the air and past Taylor to put the Canucks up 2-1.
Stempniak then tied up the game once again when he converted a feed from Matt Stajan at 6:15 of the middle frame.
Iginla’s game-winning goal came just one second after a bench-minor penalty to Vancouver expired.
``We said coming in we’ve just got to throw a lot of pucks on net and just get an ugly one which we did,’’ said Flames defenceman Mark Giordano, who also drew an assist on the play.
Iginla attempted a centring pass to Jiri Hudler who was driving hard to the net and the puck deflected off Canucks defenceman Jason Garrison and past a stunned Luongo.
``Yeah, it was off of Jason,’’ Luongo said. ``It’s not his fault. It was just a bad break. It’s unfortunate that it had to happen at that time of the game and it turned out to be the winning goal. It’s just a bad break there.’’