In Anaheim, the Calgary Flames kept their post season hopes alive with a 5-1 win over the Ducks on Tuesday night.
Dan Vladar made 19 saves in the Flames win.
Calgary improved to 32-25-15, but remain four points back of the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference.
“We wanted to come out and show that we’re better than [Monday] night,” said Calgary forward Mikael Backlund, who had two assists. “Last night wasn’t good enough, and wasn’t acceptable.”
Calgary grabbed a 3-1 lead into the middle frame before Frank Vatrano got the Ducks on the board in the middle frame.
“When they get out to a lead like that early on, you can kind of be on your heels a little bit,” Vatrano said. “We knew that we needed to do a better job in the second period in our all-around game, and I thought we did that.”
Calgary needed 37 seconds of fresh ice in the first period to take a 1-0 lead on a strike by Nick Ritchie .
“It was good to see Big Nick score, first shift,” Calgary coach Darryl Sutter said. “Nice to score the first goal when you’re on the road.”
The Ducks dropped to 23-38-10.
“We knew [the Flames] were going to be a little ornery after their game last night against L.A.,” Anaheim coach Dallas Eakins said.
Calgary pushed the 2-0 on a marker from Troy Stecher .
“The start was what propelled us to carry on throughout the rest of the night,” Stecher said. “You don’t get that first goal, things can change, so it was a huge momentum shift in the game.”
Rasmus Andersson ballooned the lead to 3-0 early in the middle frame.
“Other than a few spurts in the second period, maybe for about six minutes in the second, we couldn’t sustain much,” Eakins said. “Every time we turned, they were in our face.”
Elias Lindholm and Andrew Mangiapane scored in the third period to give the Flames the 5-1 win.
John Gibson made 38 saves in the Anaheim loss.
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