Flames lose fourth straight

In Calgary, the Ottawa Senators’ Matt Murray finally won his first game of the campaign, 4-1, over the Flames.

“I felt good today, but to be honest with you, I’ve felt good really all season long, [and] I’ve said that all along,” Murray said. “It felt really good to get the result tonight, though. I’ve been battling and not getting the results. Tonight feels good, for sure.”

Matthew Tkachuk was the lone goal scorer for the Flames.

“It’s definitely not the way we want it to be right now,” Tkachuk said. “Thank God we had the start [to the season] we did, it will keep us kind of in it still. There’s no panic by any stretch, but we want to fix this and only have eight [games] left before All-Star [Weekend], so we’d love to get this figured out soon so we can go on a little bit of a roll before that All-Star break.”

The Flames fell to 17-11-6.

Nick Paul hit for a pair of goals to give the Senators a 2-0 lead.

Ottawa improved to 10-18-2.

“This one feels good for sure,” Murray said. “I thought we were pretty dialed in all night, played good Sens hockey. They had their pushes for sure. They’re a good team. We weathered the storm and got the job done. That was probably one of the best games we’ve played all year, I would say.”

Connor Brown and Drake Batherson  added a single markers for Ottawa.

“We try to hunt the puck, get it back, and try to create through that. We did a good job of that,” Brown said. “We did a good job of getting pucks back and making it tough on their [defensemen] to break out and turned it into some offensive chances, and we were able to capitalize.”

The Flames have lost four straight.

“I don’t think there’s enough disappointment when they lose,” Calgary head coach Darryl Sutter said. “There’s just not enough emotion in our game right now.

“There has to be a lot more guys able to handle adversity. That’s a big challenge for this group. It’s still so much of a process that it can be frustrating, but at the same time, we can dig in and play better.”

Jacob Markstrom made 30 saves in the Calgary loss.