In Calgary, the Flames scored three times in the middle frame on Saturday to take a 3-0 lad over the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning. 
Calgary then held off a Tampa rally in the third period to win, 4-2.
“We played hard,” the Flames’ MacKenzie Weegar said. “I’ve got to give credit to the whole team tonight. I thought it was a full 60 minutes from everybody.”
Dan Vladar made 31 saves in the win.
The Flames improved to s 12-14-5..
After a scoreless first opening stanza, A.J. Greer got the second period rally going with a goal at 2:30 for a 1-0 lead.
Weegar potted a marker at 6:17 on a screened shot for a 2-0 advantage to Calgary.
“I thought that was probably our best period of the year,” Weegar said. “We were moving the puck quick. They were grinding the [defense] down. The [defensemen] were jumping up. We were breaking the puck out well. I thought we checked hard. We were on the good side of the puck. That was great to see for us. Hopefully we can keep building on that. I’m sure we’ll go over it and show some great clips, some things that we need to improve upon, but I thought that was a great, great period by our team.”
The Flames’ Yegor Sharangovich scored 43 seconds later for a 3-0 advantage to Calgary headed to the third period.
“When I get the chance to take a shot, I try to shoot and try to score, and if you shoot it three, four times in a game, maybe one shot will go for a goal,” Sharangovich said.
It was Sharangovich’s fifth straight game with a goal.
The Lightning dropped to 14-13-5.
“We’ve just got to get back to playing, I know it’s cliche, but the right way,” Tampa’s Victor Hedman said. “It’s just a matter of us getting back to what works. We know we have it in us. We just have to make the right plays at the right times. Just small mistakes that cost us and end up in our net.”
Tampa rallied with a pair of markers in the third period to trim the deficit to 3-2.
Brayden Point hit at 4:10 of the period to make it 3-1.
Steven Stamkos scored 90 seconds later to make it a one-goal game at 3-2.
“It’s execution and breakouts,” Point said. “When it’s sloppy, they spend the whole period in our zone. We couldn’t break the puck out and they have nothing but time in our zone. In the third period, I thought we did a better job of executing our breakouts and that’s why we didn’t spend as much time in the [defensive] zone. I think our push was better too, our effort was better in the third. I think it really starts with those breakouts.”
Calgary held off any further rally from the Lightning for 10 minutes before Connor Zary scored for the 4-2 final count.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves in the loss.
“Bottom line is we’ve got to be better as a whole,” Hedman said. “It starts with the leaders in this room. It took us two periods to wake up. It’s not good enough in this league.”
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