Flames shut down Lightning, 6-3

In Calgary, the Flames’ Jonathan Huberdeau and Blake Coleman  scored empty-net goals late in the third period to close out their match with the Tampa Bay Lightning in a Saturday matinee.

The goals came after the Lightning had closed the gap in the game to 4-3 early in the third on a strike from Anthony Cirelli.

“I think we’ve just got to get back to playing our game, sticking to our structure for a full 60 minutes from the first puck drop to the last seconds of the game. Just playing our game no matter what the other team throws at us,” Cirelli said. “We have such high belief in this room. We’ve just got to get back to work.”

It was enough for a 6-3 win for Calgary.

The Flames improved to 22-16-9.

Dan Vladar made 21 saves in the Calgary win.

Calgary took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a goal from Nazem Kadri.

The Lightning replied in the middle frame with goals from Steven Stamkos and Vladislav Namestnikov  for a 2-1 advantage.

Tampa dropped to 29-15-1.

“If we can win five, lose two, win five, lose two, I’ll take that all day,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “That’ll get us home ice (in the Stanley Cup Playoffs). It’s just frustrating. To me that’s always a successful trip, but when you go 3-0 and drop the last two, it makes it a little sour. But we’ll take it. About .500 on the trip, and it puts a little more stress on us at home to do better than that.”

The Flames responded with a three-goal outburst.

Tyler Toffoli and Rasmus Andersson  scored to give the Flames a 3-2 lead in the second.

“It was a lot of emotion and a lot of goals,” Andersson said. “It was a fun one and a good thing we came out on top.”

Dillon Dube put the Flames up, 4-2, at 7:40 of the third period.

“We competed every shift. We didn’t take too many off and played the right way,” Dube said. “There was a lot of compete from the guys out there today. We were really prepared to play and prepared to win. Really good job by our group.”

“We bounced back quick today, and I think we responded really well after their second goal, obviously,” Andersson said. “I’m proud of the guys. We bounced back quick and once we got the lead, we played really well, I thought.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 35 saves in the Tampa loss.