Thursday night’s loss to the Montreal Canadiens was tough for Calgary Flames goaltender Jacob Markstrom.
The 32-year-old wanted to take the blame for the 2-1 defeat that saw him beaten twice in 19 shots.
“I’m just not good at hockey right now,” he said during his brief press conference.
“I think my teammates did a good job. Once again I have to get better. I’m not good and I need to pull myself together. We play good hockey and don’t give up a lot of scoring chances, but we can’t always start games late.”
Markstrom blamed himself for allowing Juraj Slafkovsky to score the game’s first goal just 13 seconds after the first faceoff. The masked Flames man made a very risky excursion, allowing the first pick of the last National League draft to put the puck in an abandoned net.
“I think everyone saw what happened. It wasn’t the right game,” said the Swede.
Flames head coach Darryl Sutter came to Markstrom’s defense, blaming all the skaters on the ice surface during that series.
“It wasn’t just the goalkeeper,” said the pilot. sean [Monahan] had the whole middle of the ice. There are some covers on the first play that weren’t done.”
In 17 games so far this season, Markstrom is 8-6-2 with a .889 save and 2.97 goals against average.
The Flames will return to action on Saturday night when the Washington Capitals will be in the Saddledome.
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