Flames burn Blues, 7-1

In Calgary, the Flames took out their frustration of letting the Edmonton Oilers off the mat over the weekend, and thrashed the St Louis Blues, 7-1, on Monday night.

Tyler Bozak gave the Blues 1-0 lead in the first period, and the Flames reeled off seven unanswered goals.

Matthew Tkachuk assisted on five of the Calgary goals.

“Matthew’s got great vision when he’s got the puck, and playing on his off-wing this year gives him a whole different dynamic of what he can see and what he can do, and he’s making the most of it,” Calgary head coach Darryl Sutter said.

Jacob Markstrom made 20 saves in the win.

“We’re coming off a loss and they’re coming off a win, and I think we wanted it a little bit more tonight,” Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau said.

Gaudreau had a goal and four points in the win.

The Blues fell to 25-12-5.

“This has to be a wake-up call for us and get back to our brand of hockey,” St. Louis’ Ryan O’Reilly said. “You look at the division and how tight it is and where we sit  … It’s starting to get into the important time of the season and starting to get into that push for the playoffs. It’s time to get back to us. That’s what we’ve got to do.”

Elias Lindholm and Sean Monahan also scored for Calgary.

The St Louis lead lasted all of 51 seconds, when  Nikita Zadorov scored for the Flames to tie it, Calgary took the lead off a strike by Christopher Tanev.

“We knew they were going to start aggressive and hard,” O’Reilly said. “They’re a very good team with a lot of skill that plays hard. Just right from the get-go, we were kind of on our heels and just kind of watching. Against a team like that, you just can’t do it. They took over the game. They dominated us from start to finish. That’s not us. That’s not our brand of hockey. That’s not Blues hockey.”

Blake Coleman and Adam Ruzicka added markers.

Jordan Binnington got the start and surrendered all seven strikes by the Flames. He made 28 saves, and was given the hook in the second intermission.

“We have to play them again here right away,” St. Louis head coach Craig Berube said. “We’re going to take some stuff out of [the game], learn from it, and move on and play a better game the next time we play them.”

Ville Husso, who made 13 saves in a mop up role.