Praise for Halák despite two quick goals

Since his teammates equalized at 2:2, it went to overtime. And in it, Calgary’s Mikael Backlund, who skillfully buried the puck between Halák’s concretes after Jonathan Huberdeau’s shot, decided Calgary’s victory on the power play.

JAROSLAV HALÁK did not add the eighth winning game in the series, but he recovered after a bad start

Jaroslav Halák intervened in the NHL fight exactly after a week, but despite his efforts, he did not improve his winning streak to eight games. Before the match on the Calgary ice, statisticians reminded that the third oldest active goaltender in the NHL could become the first “guardian of the sanctuary” in the NY Rangers uniform with at least eight consecutive victories since 1996/97. That’s when Mike Richter flashed a streak of 11 triumphs.

It didn’t happen, despite the fact that after a bad start, Halák found a rhythm, made 29 saves with a success rate of almost 91 percent. Especially important were his interventions in the third period with a jumper after Kadri’s shot from overcounting and a catch after Dube’s break. “In the beginning, we let him bathe in it. He was suffering but he didn’t give up and some of his saves were incredible.” defenseman Ryan Lindgren told the NHL website about Halák.

Although Halák lost his own winning streak, he helped extend the point streak of his teammates to 10 meetings. In the current competition year, the student from Ružinov has eight wins, six losses and two losses after extra time or raids with an average success rate of 90.7%. Even before the match against Calgary, the participant of two Winter Olympics and three World Championships said that as he gets older, he no longer thinks about how many game-winning catches he will catch. At the same time, he has only seven more to reach the triple hundred.

“The older I get, the less I look at myself and winning streaks. The team is paramount. We play in a tough division and it will be a battle for the playoffs until the end. Every two points or points are of great value to us,” revealed Jaroslav Halák.

In addition to Halák, there were three other Slovak hockey players in the game on Saturday. Attacker Adam Ružička played directly against a more experienced compatriot, who after a three-game absence moved to Calgary’s second attack alongside Tyler Toffoli and Dillon Dube. He replaced Elias Lindholm, who got time off and went to support his wife during childbirth.

During eleven and a half minutes on the ice, Ružička also added a block and two winning throws to two shots. However, it remains true that so far this season, he last scored before Christmas and has 15 games to contribute to the productivity statistics.

Tomáš Tatar, after moving to the first attack, shone with an assist on New Jersey’s first goal. The “Devils” won 5:2 on the ice of Pittsburgh mainly thanks to four points of the Swiss captain Nic Hischier. Tomáš Tatar improved his productivity to 31 points (12+19) and finished the match with two plus points.

Martin Fehérváry experienced a special match. Washington’s young defensive back got his first career taste of playing outdoors overseas. Within the so-called In the Stadium Series, his team lost to Carolina 1:4 in a match that was watched live by almost 57,000 spectators. Fehérváry gave the opponents four points, blocked three shots, but did not prevent the Capitals’ fourth loss in an uninterrupted series.

“It was an amazing experience. The amount of people excited me. Over 56,000 is much more than the second largest number I started before. It’s just a shame that we didn’t get two points. We let ourselves score four goals, and then it was difficult to do anything with the game.” said Martin Fehérváry in his blog on NHL.com/sk.

The 23-year-old defender added to his performance: “From our team, I was the youngest on the ice. I am grateful for the opportunity I have been given. I’m just trying to do my job and keep improving. Sometimes it is very difficult, for example, when we have now lost several games in a row.”