In Calgary, the Flames held a lead of 5-1 and 6-2 over the Edmonton Oilers in the middle frame on Wednesday.
That second four-goal lead evaporated in a storm of goals from the Oilers who tied it. 6-6, in the third period off a goal from Keith Yamamoto.
The Flames’ Rasmus Andersson ended the Oilers’ four-goal run to give Calgary a 7-6 lead.
In the third, Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk scored two of his three goals on the night after the Oilers rallied to tie, and helped the Flames grab a 9-6 win in Game 1.
“Probably our worst game of the playoffs so far,” Tkachuk said. “We got super lucky. That’s just not the recipe for success. Maybe we win this one, but we’re not going to win many more if we’re going to play like that. We’ve got to be better with the lead. We had a four-goal lead twice. That should be enough in the playoffs. We’ll be better next game.”
Jacob Markstrom made 22 saves in the Flames win.
“It’s just one game, that’s how we look at it,” Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. “We’ll go back to the drawing board and address the issues that showed up.”
Zach Hyman hit for a double for the Oilers.
Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid each had single markers for Edmonton.
“Just a couple of mistakes, collectively, individually, that ended up right on their tape and back of our net,” Draisaitl said. “Lot of things we obviously need to clean up.”
Sure, just a couple of mistakes.
“We got to 6-6, then turned over some pucks and it ended up in the back of our net,” Woodcroft said. “Like I keep saying, we scored six goals on the Calgary Flames in their building, that should be enough to win a game.”
Blake Coleman scored a pair of goals fro the Flames.
“There’s a lot of different ways to contribute in the playoffs, and I try to find different ways to do it when I’m not scoring,” Coleman said. “Obviously, on a night like tonight, it’s a good thing pucks were going in, because we needed every goal we could get.”
Edmonton’s Evan Bouchard also scored for the Oilers, his strike came after the Flames built a 5-1 lead.
Game 2 is Friday night in Calgary.
“We made some mental mistakes in the second period, got away from our checking game a little bit,” Coleman said. “The good news is it’s correctable. We can go back to the drawing board tomorrow, and as long as guys are willing to look in the mirror and take some responsibility for what happened in that period, we’re going to be fine. We’re going to regroup, get back to our game. That’s not our style of game, 9-6.”
In the first period, the Flames had the early push with goals from Elias Lindholm, Andrew Mangiapane, and Brett Ritchie for the 3-0 lead.
“When you’re down 2-0 before for it hits the 19-minute mark on the clock, it’s obviously not a good start,” Draisaitl said. “Clearly, we weren’t ready.”
Mike Smith got the start for the Oilers, but was given an early hook after he surrendered three goals to the Flames on just 10 shots.
Mikko Koskinen made 32 saves in relief. He yielded three goals in each of the final two periods.
You must be logged in to post a comment.