CALGARY – SPORTS – The Winnipeg Jets won their third straight game, 3-2 against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Friday in the first of a three-game series in a light night for the Canadian teams.
Blake Wheeler, Kyle Connor and Paul Stastny each had a goal and an assist, and Connor Hellebuyck made 25 saves for the Jets (21-11-2).
“Our game has been good, our game has been right on for a bit here now,” Wheeler said. “You have confidence, and that can give you a chance to win every single night now. There’s going to be nights where it doesn’t go your way, and that’s where you build confidence knowing that even when it doesn’t go your way, the next night you can rely on a brand of hockey that can give you some success.”
Thunder Bay’s Eric Staal Heads to Montreal
Eric Staal was traded to the Montreal Canadiens by the Buffalo Sabres on Friday for a third-round and a fifth-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.
Staal is in the final season of a two-year, $6.5 million contract ($3.25 million average annual value) he signed with the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 25, 2019 and can become an unrestricted free agent after the season. The Sabres will retain $1.625 million of the forward’s salary.
The 36-year-old Thunder Bay native has scored 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in 32 games this season.
Eric Staal was acquired by Buffalo in a trade with Minnesota on September 16.
“It hasn’t been good enough. I haven’t been good enough,” Staal said back on March 18. “Clearly, in my mind, I had envisioned things differently coming here and it just hasn’t come to fruition and it hasn’t lived up to those thoughts. I think that’s for sure been challenging, that’s been difficult, but that’s still no excuse. It doesn’t matter. I have more pride in myself, what I can do in this league, what I can do on the ice, and at the end of the day it hasn’t been good enough for me personally, and obviously, clearly it hasn’t been good enough for our team either.”
