News » British Columbia (AP) Thatcher Demko couldn’t stop

VANCOUVER Columbus Blue Jackets Hats Womens , British Columbia (AP) Thatcher Demko couldn’t stop grinning the whole game in his first NHL start despite giving up the tying goals before the Vancouver Canucks won it in overtime.Alex Edler scored 1:21 into the extra period and Demko finished with 26 saves in the Canucks’ wild 5-4 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday.”I just tried to enjoy it,” the 22-year-old Demko said. ”I had a blast. … Even when they scored on three consecutive shots I was still smiling. It was a lot of fun to be part of it.”On the winning goal, Edler picked up a loose puck in the Blue Jackets’ end, waited patiently, then beat Columbus goalie Joonas Korpisalo with a shot to the far side.”I knew we had a 2-on-1,” Edler said. ”I wanted to pass it but it just wasn’t there.”Jussi Jokinen had a goal and two assists against his former team, and Darren Archibald, Bo Horvat and Nikolay Goldobin also scored for the Canucks, who tied a season-high with their fourth straight win and fifth in six games after a seven-game skid.The Blue Jackets erased a 4-1 deficit by scoring three goals in 2:37 late in the third period to tie it.Pierre-Luc Dubois started the comeback with a power-play goal with just under four minites remaining, Zach Werenski pulled Columbus within one with 1:37 left and Cam Atkinson tied it 16 seconds later.”We’re a team that regardless of the score we are never out of the fight,” said Atkinson. ”We’re still fighting for our lives, so we can’t afford to take our foot off the gas pedal for a second. When we did, it showed.”Seth Jones had a goal and three assists, Artemi Panari had four assists and Korpisalo finished with 24 saves for the Blue Jackets, who are 12-1-1 in their last 14 games as they try to pass Pittsburgh for second place in the Metropolitan Division.Columbus coach John Tortorella was happy his team didn’t quit.”There were a number of guys that struggled, some big guys that struggled, but those last few minutes some big guys stood up,” he said. ”No matter what happened we found a way to get a point.”Demko, picked 36th overall in the 2014 draft Custom Columbus Blue Jackets Jerseys , was called up from Utica of the AHL because backup goalie Anders Nilsson has the flu. He arrived in Vancouver late Friday night, then was in net for the game which started at 1 p.m. Vancouver time.”My body was pretty confused,” he said. ”I was almost too tired to be nervous.”Demko looked tight early in the game. Just 19 seconds into the first period Atkinson blasted a shot that hit the crossbar behind him. Four shots hit the post.”I think the posts are bigger up here than they are in the AHL,” Demko said.By the second period, Demko seemed more relaxed and looked sharp getting a pad on Atkinson’s shot during a 3-on-1 Columbus breakaway.”I thought he looked good,” Canucks coach Travis Green said. ”I don’t think he looked out of place. … He’s confident enough to do what he does.”Jokinen gave Vancouver a 3-1 lead at 5:14 of the third period. He took Jake Virtanen’s pass from behind the net and sent a shot over Korpisalo’s blocker. It was Jokinen’s third goal since coming to Vancouver along with center Tyler Motte at the trade deadline in a deal that sent Thomas Vanek to Columbus.”Every time you play against your old team you want to show they made a mistake letting you go,” Jokinen said. ”For sure I had extra motivation.”He also assisted on Horvat’s goal later in the period, giving him five assists and eight points in 11 games with the Canucks.The Canucks scored goals 1:44 apart in the second period to take a 2-1 lead.Archibald tied it at 11:53. His shot from the faceoff circle looked to be tipped by a Columbus defenseman. Korpisalo still managed to get a piece of the puck but it went off his glove and into the net. Ashton Saunter, another callup from Utica, earned an assist for his first NHL point.Goldobin put Vancouver ahead on a pretty give-and-go with Jokinen, scoring his sixth of the season on a sharp-angle shot.The Blue Jackets opened the scoring at 13:55 of the first period, just seven seconds after Daniel Sedin was called for tripping. Jones scored after taking a pass from Atkinson and ripping a shot from the blue line. Demko looked slow at moving across his crease on the play.NOTES: Jones’ two-point night gave him 54 points, setting a Columbus record for a defenseman. … Blue Jacket D Markus Nutivaara left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury. … Sedin’s 54 penalty minutes is the most in his 17-year career with the Canucks. He had 50 minutes in 2007-08. … The last time Vancouver won four consecutive games was Oct. 20-26.UP NEXTBlue Jackets: Host Detroit on Tuesday night.Canucks: Host Vegas on Tuesday night. CALGARY, Alberta (AP) After a blip in Vancouver, the Boston Bruins got right back to business.Brad Marchand scored his 22nd goal 3:36 into overtime to give Boston a 2-1 victory over the Calgary Flames on Monday, less than 48 hours after the Bruins lost 6-1 to the Canucks.”We ran into a hot goalie in Vancouver. Their goalie played great tonight, but we were resilient,” Marchand said. ”We were much better in the defensive zone and had a better game overall.”Article continues below ...David Pastrnak also scored for Boston (36-13-8), which moved within one point of Tampa Bay for first place in the Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference. The Bruins www.starsshoponline.com , who are 12-1-2 in their last 15 road games, have two games in hand on the Lightning.Boston has lost only three times in regulation in the last 28 games (21-3-4).”It starts at the top with leadership, and just having that constant belief we can do it, we can get the job done regardless of who we’re playing against,” Riley Nash said.After TJ Brodie’s turnover deep in the Flames end, Nash’s pass sprung Marchand on a breakaway and he made no mistake, slipping the puck through the pads of rookie goaltender David Rittich for the ninth overtime goal of his career.”(Nash) made a phenomenal defensive play,” Marchand said. ”I knew that they had three guys low and I just tried to get out of the zone. He made a great play to get it up.”Brodie accepted the blame.”Tonight was on me,” the Calgary defenseman said. ”I tried to pass to Johnny (Gaudreau). I could have passed it to (Sean Monahan), I could have shot it. It’s one of those things that looking back now, I definitely could have done something different.”Matthew Tkachuk scored for the Flames (30-21-9), who fell to 1-3-4 in their last eight home games. They began the day one point out of third place in the Pacific Division.”It’s like any slump – the harder you try, the more you grip the stick, the worse it is,” Brodie said. ”It’s not like we’ve been playing bad at home. We’ve gotten chances. It’s just one of those things where a bounce here and there, we could be talking about the same record as the road.”With the teams meeting for the second time in six days, Calgary was territorially outplayed by a wide margin in the first period but Rittich kept the Flames in it.Calgary tied it 1-all at 5:28 of the second, scoring on the power play. Monahan’s shot was stopped by Tuukka Rask, but as the puck lied at the feet of Zdeno Chara in the crease Dallas Stars T-Shirts Womens , Tkachuk knocked in his 22nd goal.Rittich was starting his fourth game in a row, with veteran Mike Smith (lower body) still sidelined. Rittich was pulled Saturday night after giving up four goals on 15 shots.”Huge bounce-back for Rittich,” Flames coach Glen Gulutzan said. ”That team is a hard team to beat. You look across the league, not many teams are beating them. You can’t really beat them without goaltending and we got it tonight and it gave us a chance.”The 25-year-old Czech goalie was especially sharp in keeping the score even at 1.A minute after Calgary tied it, Rittich slid across the crease to get a glove on Marchand’s backhand out of midair after he was set up by Patrice Bergeron.Late in the second, Rittich stabbed out his glove to rob Ryan Spooner on a breakaway. In the third, the goalie stared down Pastrnak on a breakaway and acrobatically got the toe of his left pad on a dangerous chance.Rittich finished with 30 stops but fell to 6-3-3.”It’s frustrating,” said Tkachuk, who has 14 goals in his last 22 games. ”They’re a really good team. Didn’t give us many chances at all. The ones that we did get, we’ve got to capitalize.”Rask also was coming off a shortened outing in his previous start, pulled after giving up four goals on eight shots in the first period against Vancouver.This time, he made 28 saves to improve to 24-10-4.Boston struck first at 5:59 when Michael Frolik coughed up the puck along the sideboards in his own end and Pastrnak pounced on it, quickly firing a shot past Rittich on his blocker side.NOTES: Flames D Travis Hamonic played in his 500th career game. … Calgary LW Morgan Klimchuk, drafted in 2013, made his NHL debut on a line with C Matt Stajan and RW Curtis Lazar. Every player selected in the first round of that draft has now played an NHL game. … The Bruins improved to 9-1-3 in their last 13 games against Calgary. … Boston is 23-1-5 when scoring first.UP NEXTBruins: Tuesday night at Edmonton.Flames: Wednesday night at Vegas.—