In Calgary, David Rittich made 27 saves for the Flames in a 5-1 win over the visiting Detroit Red Wings.
“I’m trying my best and I’m trying to get guys confidence,” Rittich said. “If I’m going to make some big saves, maybe they’re going to score. It happened today, and I’m happy for that.”
Mark Giordano and Derek Ryan had a goal and two points each in the win.
“We know guys like [Monahan] and Johnny [Gaudreau], you know they’re going to break out and get a bunch here in the next little bit,” Giordano said. “It was nice to see our other guys step up and get some confidence going too.”
Darren Helm scored the lone Wings goal.
“The season has ebbs and flows, but obviously losing three now we’ve got to make sure that each of us look in the mirror at how we can be better,” Detroit forward Justin Abdelkader said. “We’re having a tough time scoring and we’ve got to make sure we’re keeping pucks out of our net and we’re playing as a unit of five.”
Andrew Mangiapane, Elias Lindholm and Sam Bennett also scored for Calgary who improved to 4-3-1.
“I didn’t think we were tight in the second, I thought we were fine in the first and fine in the third, and I think in the third it came down to us having the puck more and that’s how we want to play,” Flames head coach Bill Peters said.
[WATCH: All Red Wings vs. Flames highlights]
Jimmy Howard made 31 saves in the loss.
“When you lose the specialty-teams battle, you’re going to lose a lot of games,” Justin Abdelkader said. “We have to make sure we’re winning those battles, winning battles 5-on-4, 5-on-5, everywhere, stick battles, 1-on-1 battles. It’s early in the season, but we’ve got to make sure that’s our calling card.”
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