The Anaheim Ducks continued their hot streak Monday night with a win over the Flames in Calgary, 6-4.
Mike Santorelli keyed the win as he scored twice in the victory that pushed the Ducks closer to the first place Los Angeles Kings.
Hampus Lindholm, Corey Perry, Sami Vatanen and Rickard Rackell also added goals for the Ducks.
Frederik Andersen had 33 saves in win over Flames – file photo by Brent Clark
The Ducks are now 11-2-1 in their 14 games and where once they were considered dead are now pushing the Kings.
“It’s a little better atmosphere. We’re having fun,” Perry said. “Everybody knows their role, everybody’s playing their role and everyone’s doing the right things. It’s working out right now. You just want to get in the playoffs. It doesn’t matter where you are. Just get into the playoffs.”
Jiri Hudler scored twice and Johnny Gaudreau and Dougie Hamilton scored for the Flames who could hardly afford another loss in a disappointing season.
“There’s still a lot of games to play but we’ve got to go on a streak obviously,” Flames forward Mikael Backlund said. “If we can manage to do that, we’ll be right in the mix but we’ve got to find a way to get some wins and get on a roll pretty quickly.”
Frederik Andersen made 33 saves for the win.
“You feel better when you feel the puck a little bit,” Andersen said. “Even in the first it was a few lucky bounces that went their way. That’s some of the things you’ve got to be mentally strong to keep that away and just focus on making the next save, like in the third. We’re going in with a one-goal lead. We came at them and I didn’t have to do too much, but some good saves to keep the two-goal lead throughout the period. It was a wild one but a good two points.”
But the killer for the Flames was their penalty killing unit that allowed three goals on the night.
“It’s really frustrating,” Backlund said. “We were doing so much better after Christmas and we were trying to build on it. It’s tough to have so many penalties the last two games and today and not be able to kill them.”
Jonas Hiller had a tough start and was pulled in favor of Joni Ortio after yielding four goals on 17 shots.
“It seemed like every shot would bounce off skates, shin pads, and get in the net,” Calgary coach Bob Hartley said. “I thought I’d try to turn the game around, shake things up a little bit and get some momentum out of the change. Sometimes it works but tonight it didn’t.”
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