Flames gain in North race

Well, if the Montreal Canadiens are going to continue to lose games, the Calgary Flames have no choice but to try and win games.

On Thursday night, they did just that with a  31- win over the Oilers in Edmonton.

Elias Lindholm struck for two goals in the win.

“I tried to get it up and saw the open net, but he made a nice save,” Lindholm said. “That was probably my best chance in a long time. It’s funny how that works, two greasy ones in the beginning and then get a really good chance and it doesn’t go in.”

Jacob Markstrom made 30 saves to get  the win.

“We’re not in the position we want to be right now and we still aren’t even after this win tonight,” Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk said. “We’re unfortunately doing a little bit of scoreboard watching as well. It’s a two-team race with Montreal, and Montreal is ahead of us with a game in hand. All we can do is keep winning and hope they lose some to make this very interesting down the stretch.”

James Neal was the Oilers’ only striker.

Dillon Dube also scored for the Flames.

“They shortened their bench so much in the last half of the game that [Leon Draisaitl] and [McDavid] were out there so much together, so they’re hard to play against and I think our defense did a good job,” Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said. “The first period, I don’t think either team would say they were very sharp, so we were lucky to get out of it where we were in this building where it’s been tough to win. We’ll take the win and move on.”

Mike Smith made 27 saves in the loss.

“We were sloppy with the puck, turned a lot of pucks over,” Edmonton head coach Dave Tippett said. “Smith was really good in goal, gave us a chance, and we had some chances and didn’t bury anything.”