In Calgary, Jacob Markstrom made 19 saves in a 5-2 win for the Flames over the visiting New York Islanders on Saturday.
Andrew Mangiapane scored for Calgary.
“We’re playing good hockey here at home,” Mangiapane said. “It feels nice to win at home and get the crowd involved. It’s fun to play here right now.”
The Flames improved to 26-13-6.
“I think every loss is frustrating in its own way,” the Islanders’ Noah Dobson said. “I think we go in there each night trying to win. The last two games we definitely did some good stuff, and I think tonight just a couple breakdowns that cost us. I think we can’t dwell on it.”
Dobson and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored for the Islanders.
The Islanders dropped to 17-19-6.
Adam Ruzicka and Christopher Tanev scored for Calgary in taking a 2-1 lead in the game.
“To be honest, I don’t really care about the points,” Ruzicka said. “I care that we won the game. That’s six in a row.”
Calgary’s Erik Gudbranson and Elias Lindholm scored in the third period to ice the game.
“It’s a one-goal game going into the third period, that’s how the Islanders play, that’s why they went to the conference finals last year,” Flames coach Darryl Sutter said.
Ilya Sorokin made 24 saves in the Isles loss.
“The biggest disappointment was the third,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “They just had better legs. They were winning more battles and getting more pucks. They got the fourth goal there and that was one that we needed to not have go against us.”
Semyon Varlamov was placed in COVID-19 protocol after warmups.
“‘Varly,’ obviously he was scheduled to play,” Trotz said. “He warmed up feeling fine, but obviously while we’re in Canada you have to test and we got the results, basically, I think there was maybe about 10 minutes before we were going back on the ice. So ‘Sorokie’ had to go in there last minute.”
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