Looking to bounce back from an embarrassing 9-1 loss on home ice

Looking to bounce back from an embarrassing 9-1 loss on home ice to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday Luke Glendening Jersey , the Calgary Flames will face yet another tough opponent on Saturday.The Flames (5-5-0) will host the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals (4-3-2) in an afternoon affair at the Scotiabank Saddledome.A day after giving up six goals on 21 shots to the Penguins, goalie Mike Smith met with the media on Friday to talk about the disappointing loss.Article continues below ...“I don’t think anyone can be very proud of what happened (Thursday) night,” said Smith, who has allowed at least four goals in five of his past seven starts. “It was an embarrassment as far as I’m concerned, and I think everyone realizes that, but it’s over.“To blame guys would be an easy thing to do, an easy out. The harder thing is to just go and work hard and try to climb out of this thing.”Despite his lackluster performance against the Penguins, Smith will get the chance to redeem himself as he will get the start against the Caps.“It’s pretty early still,” Smith said. “I think if you… start pouting and feel sorry for yourself Martin Frk Jersey , it’s going to be a really long year. You have to realize that, put things in perspective and keep working hard and pushing forward.”Calgary coach Bill Peters refused to blame the loss to Pittsburgh on Smith or backup goalie David Rittich, who surrendered three goals on 15 shots in relief. “Once we start playing a little bit better away from the puck — not a little bit better, quite a bit better — and with a commitment to playing defense as a group and as a unit of five, then we can talk about our goaltending,” Peters said. “We’re going to go right back to Smitty (Saturday) and give our group a chance to redeem themselves for that effort (Thursday) night.”Meanwhile, the Capitals will be looking to follow up a disappointing 4-1 loss in Edmonton on Thursday with a better performance against the Flames.“We lost as well, so we don’t want to lose two in a row so we’re going to play differently as well,” said reigning Conn Smyth Trophy winner Alexander Ovechkin http://www.officialredwings.com/authentic-adidas-mike-green-jersey , who expects the Flames to “come out flying” in front of their hometown fans.Nine games into the season, the Capitals still haven’t found a way to string together back-to-back wins, which is something that defenseman Matt Niskanen and his teammates would like to change.“I think we’re still searching for (consistency),” Niskanen said. “We’ll keep a positive attitude and keep working, but I’d like to see us string a few together here with some better efforts.“The good thing about our group is (something) we’ve kind of developed over the last couple years is we rebound pretty well. We have responses. We’ll look for that in Calgary, but I think we all know we can play better.”Forward Chandler Stephenson echoed Niskanen’s sentiments about the Capitals finding the consistency that helped them win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.“We’re not panicking in here or pressing the panic button, so it’s just a matter of time,” Stephenson said. “We’ll be right where we want to b BOSTON (AP) Lightning coach Jon Cooper came to Boston with a plan to steal back the home-ice advantage that the Bruins took away with their Game 1 win in Tampa.Now he has bigger goals in mind.”We can’t exhale,” Cooper said on Thursday Nick Jensen Jersey , a day after the Lightning beat Boston 4-1 to open a 2-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals. ”Just because we picked one up on them, we want to make it where we have three chances to knock them out. When you have that chance, you can’t let it slide.”Since winning the opener, the Bruins have lost two in a row. On Wednesday night, Ondrej Palat scored twice in the first 3:19 of the game to give the Lightning a lead it never relinquished.”They outworked us last night, there’s no doubt about it,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said.Game 4 is Friday night (7 p.m. EDT, NBCSN).MIRROR IMAGEVegas and San Jose each have a home shutout and a road overtime win through four games of their second-round series. Now it has become a best-of-three for a spot in the Western Conference Final starting with Game 5 (10 p.m. EDT, NBCSN). The Sharks have turned things around completely from Game 1 Thomas Vanek Jersey , when they were constantly a step behind the speedier Golden Knights in a 7-0 loss.San Jose has done a much better job limiting Vegas’ chances since then.”That 7-0 game was not really us out there,” forward Eric Fehr said. ”We changed a lot of things. We came out flat in that game. I think we’ve done a good job of reeling it in and playing the way we can play. That was a game we just threw in the garbage and turned the page.”Now the Golden Knights will try to do the same after getting thoroughly outplayed in a 4-0 loss in Game 4.”It’s a good series, there’s no easy night,” goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. ”Nobody thought it was going to be an easy series either. We’re in good shape, 2-2, going home.”SHUFFLINGCassidy fiddled with his lines in practice on Thursday as he tried to find more offense for a team that seemed to have plenty of it in the first-round series against the Maple Leafs. With Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk sitting out of practice – Cassidy said he expects them to play on Friday night – Danton Heinen skated with Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak on the first line and Ryan Donato got time with David Krejci on the second.After scoring 28 goals in seven games against Toronto and six in the Round 2 opener, Boston was held to a single goal each in back-to-back games.”We’ll probably tinker,” Cassidy said. ”I’m not going to tell you who’s going in or who’s going out, because we’ve got to get the healthy guys sorted out first.”ROOKIES IN THE BOOKSLightning forward Anthony Cirelli was the 23rd different rookie to score at least one goal in 56 NHL playoff games this year. That’s already more than in all of last year’s postseason. The NHL record is 38 in 1981 Womens Adam Larsson Jersey , but over the past 30 years the most was 28, in 1990 and again in ’92.Boston’s Jake DeBrusk has six this year, leading all rookies. Minnesota North Stars forward Dino Ciccarelli scored 14 goals in ’81, the rookie record for a postseason. Penguins forward Jake Guentzel scored 13 last year and matched Ciccarelli’s point total.—AP Sports Writer Josh Dubow contributed to this story from San Jose, California.