In Calgary, Jonathan Huberdeau picked up his first goal of the season with the Flames to help them to a 4-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night.
“We want to get better,” Huberdeau said. “But I think if we play like this a lot of games, we’re going to be in a good position. We’ve got to work on some things, obviously, but overall, that’s the start we want. Every game take a lead and after that, if we can play well defensively, and it’s going to work out good for us.”
Jacob Markstrom made 32 saves in the Flames win.
Evgeni Malkin was the lone striker for the Pens, his goal came off the power play in the second period to cut the Flames lead to 3-1 at the time.
“If we look at our season to date, we were on a pretty good roll there,” Pittsburgh forward Jeff Carter said. “Offensively we were having our way for the most part. Sometimes when that happens early, you kind of get in that mindset that everything’s going to continue going that way. I think maybe we got caught in that a little bit here. The way that we win is by sticking to our game plan, sticking to our details, and we just haven’t had that the last couple nights.”
Nazem Kadri hit for a double in the win; his first goal gave Calgary a 1-0 lead in the first period.
“You always want to start off strong,” Kadri said. “Getting the first goal, I think your percentages go up automatically if you score the first goal. We always try to get off to a good start and establish home ice. We want this to be a hard place to come into and get a win.”
Andrew Mangiapane extended the lead to 2-0 before the end of the first.
Huberdeau pushed the advantage to 3-0 in the middle frame.
“It feels good, obviously, to get the first one out of the way,” Huberdeau said.
“I got it up top and I had a really nice screen in front, so I just had to kind of pick that corner and it worked out. I’ve just got to shoot a little bit more and it’s going to go in.”
Kadri’s second of the game gave the Flames a little more breathing room for the final, 4-2.
Casey DeSmith made 32 saves in the Pens loss.
“That’s a little battle we can take from this game,” Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin said regarding changing the momentum in the second period. “I’m a positive guy and we need to take some positives right now, and that’s definitely one of them. Going forward now, we still have two important games for this road trip and we can still come out with a winning record here, so that’s our focus.”
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