Calvin Pickard made 33 saves as the Edmonton Oilers scored a 4-2 road win over the Calgary Flames, Saturday night.
“Obviously we sagged a bit in the second period today, but that’s going to happen,” Pickard said after the game. “And, you know, credit where credits due; they played well. And looking after that Dallas game — coming into it back-to-back — that’s not easy and winning both is good for our group. I think we have six games left and we just want to get our game in order. It’s about us in here and then not worrying about our opponents until playoffs.”
The Oilers won three of the four meetings against the Flames this season. With six games remaining, the Oilers are three points behind Vancouver for first place in the Pacific Division.
After killing off three Flames power plays, the Oilers scored the only goal of the first period on a man advantage of their own in the frame. Leon Draisaitl ripped in a pass from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to notch his 40th of the season. It’s the fifth 40-goal season of Draisaitl’s career.
Connor Brown followed the play and slammed in his fourth of the season three minutes into the third. The Flames came back 44 seconds later on a power play blast by Yegor Sharangovich. Zach Hyman briefly left the game after being hit on the inside of the right foot by an Evan Bouchard slap shot. Once he returned, Hyman went in on a two-on-nothing with Connor McDavid, but he flubbed his shot attempt.
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Also during the second period, Corey Perry appeared to yell at Evander Kane for several seconds while they were on the bench.
Nazem Kadri tipped in a power play goal to make it 2-2 7:13 into the third. The Oilers came back three minutes later with Evan Bouchard blasting in a point shot on a power play for his 17th. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins sealed it with an empty netter.
“We battled hard, I thought we deserved better tonight,” Flames forward Jonathan Huberdeau said. “It just shows that they have a good power play and they took advantage of that and we came up short. But I thought we were the better team tonight.”
McDavid had two assists to get to 99 on the season.
“I thought we played well in the third period and the power play came up with a huge goal at the end, I did like that,” Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said. “And the other one would be Calvin Pickard. He was outstanding. I thought he made huge saves, especially late in the game with (their) goalie pulled, game on the line, he came up big. So often you win some games with goaltending, and I think tonight was one of those.”
The Oilers, 47-24-5, will host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday (630 CHED, Face-off Show at 5 p.m., game at 6:30 p.m.).
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