In Calgary, the Flames gave up two first goals to the visiting Nashville Predators on Tuesday night, then settled down, and reeled off four unanswered strikes in a 4-2 win.
Jacob Markstrom made 16 saves in the win.
“It’s important. It’s two in a row,” the Flames’ Blake Coleman said. “You can see the confidence growing in guys and in the group and the way we’re playing. I’ve said it while we’re down and I’ve said it now … confidence is a big thing in this league and it makes a big difference. When you start to get that collective confidence, that’s when teams get dangerous.”
The Flames improved to 4-7-1.
Michael McCarron and Kiefer Sherwood were the first period strikers for the Predators who seemed to have taken the night off after the first period.
“This is a little bit of a disappointing one,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “I think of all the games this year, this is really the first one I walked away or stepped back and was really disappointed in our group. I thought it was very flat. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as we can play.”
The Flames got one back in the middle frame with a goal from Dillon Dube at 15:06 of the period.
“I don’t think we got down on ourselves,” Dube said. “Even that first period we had some good momentum, gave them a couple chances. I think we stuck to it. We played hard in the second period. Guys were on top of the puck playing hard.”
Nashville dropped to 5-7-0.
“I think it’s just a learning curve or growing pains,” Sherwood said. “We’ve got a ways to go, but I think if we sharpen up and come with the mindset that we’re ready to battle for the full 60 (minutes) starting from the opening face-off, then we give ourselves a good chance because we have a lot of the things that it takes to win and wear teams down, but right now we’re just lacking the consistency, I think.”
In the third, Calgary hit for three straight goals.
Noah Hanifin tied it, 2-2, at 4:45 of the third, and Coleman scored at 6:20 to give the Flames a 3-2 lead.
“Everyone was skating,” Coleman said. “We didn’t give them much in the third. That’s the way we need to play if we’re going to continue to win games. It wasn’t one guy. It was a collective effort and that’s what our team’s got to be.”
Nazem Kadri hit an empty net 18:21 for the 4-2 final
Calgary’s Jonathan Huberdeau was benched in the third period.
“I thought ‘Huby’ had an off-night,” Flames coach Ryan Huska said. “When we went into the third period, we wanted to try to get a little bit more flow and we went with the guys we thought were going. That’s what it came down to.”
Juuse Saros made 35 saves in the loss.
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