In Calgary, the visiting Carolina Hurricanes grabbed a 2-0 first period lead over the Flames on Thursday, then sat back and watched as the Flames scored three straight in a 3-2 win.
Stefan Noesen and Michael Bunting were the first period strikers for the Canes.
“We have some guys doing it the way we want to do it and some guys that aren’t,” Noesen said. “We’re figuring it out. We’re going to work on this as a team. The only way we’re going to get out of this is together. There’s really not much more to be said than that.”
Noesen scored at 2:10 and Bunting hit at at 8:49 of the first for the two-goal lead.
Dustin Wolf settled down after the first period, he made 28 saves in the win.
The Flames moved to 11-12-3.
Calgary scored all three of their goals in the third period to get the win.
Rasmus Andersson scored at 5:42 of the third to trim the deficit to 2-1 for Calgary.
“Where we’re at right now, there should be a huge sense of urgency going into a period like that, especially when you have a two-goal lead to close it out,” Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook said. “For us to sit back and let them come, we didn’t have any pushback. Especially where we’re at right now, I don’t know, it’s hard to fathom.”
Connor Zary knotted the game, 2-2, at 7:03. off a scramble at the net.
“Honestly, you get the first one and the shift after we didn’t let them breathe,” Andersson said. “We get the second one, and then we kill a minute-twenty, a minute-thirty in the kill and ‘Colesy’ manages to get one short-handed. It was a massive goal. Then we played a clean game for the last six minutes. It was really nice to have a good second half of the game and hopefully we can take that with us on Saturday (against the New Jersey Devils).”
The Hurricanes dropped to 14-11-2 off their third straight loss.
“You can’t lose your confidence,” Martinook said. “You’ve got to believe you’re a good team and know you’re a good team. It’s just about executing. When it’s magnified right now as it is, one play here or there can be the difference and we’ve got to make sure we can’t have any lulls. We’ve got to be dialed in 100 percent of the game and just not take your foot off the gas for one moment, especially where we’re at right now.”
Blake Coleman put the Flames ahead, 3-2 at 11:44 with a shorthanded marker for the win.
“There’s no doubt in our minds that it’s going to flip at some point, we’re going to have good starts,” Coleman said. “And to know you have the ability to come back in games late in the year is important. If we can figure out the ways to get ahead of teams and hold onto leads…there’s only two ways to have to win in this league and we’ve got one of them down pretty dang well, so if we can figure out the other half, we’re going to be in good shape.”
Pyotr Kochetkov made 24 saves in the loss.
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