Flames upend Bruins, 5-2 Markstrom makes 21 saves in win

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In Boston, the visiting Calgary Flames scored twice in the first and two in the third to take a 4-1 win over the Bruins on Tuesday night.

Andrei Kuzmenko scored in his debut after being traded to the Flames by the Vancouver Canucks.

“It’s a good feeling because we win,” Kuzmenko said. “It’s good. … Today is a normal game, it’s not [great] because we had a lot of chances. We needed more goals [on] my line, [but] it’s good.”

Jacob Markstrom made 21 saves in the win.

Calgary moved to 23-22-5.

Kuzmenko made his presence felt early when he p[ut the Flames up, 1-0, at 4:20 of the first off a power play strike.

“To me, that’s a turning point, for sure,” Calgary coach Ryan Huska said. “And then our power play getting two [goals]. … That’s a real positive for us because even the one we didn’t score at the end of the game, it was dangerous. It looked good, and that’s something that we want to keep seeing.”

Calgary’s Connor Zary pushed the lead to 2-0 at 13:01 with a backhand shot from above the crease.

The score remained 2-0 into the third period.

Boston dropped to 31-10-9.

“I just didn’t think we were good,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “Our effort was poor. Obviously as a staff, you look inward and you look at our preparation. You always think, as a coach, your preparation was good, but obviously, it wasn’t good enough. A lot of mental mistakes, a lot of physical mistakes, and that’s the lack of real good preparation. Individually and collectively.”

With the Bruins skating with two extra players, Pavel Zacha trimmed the deficit to 2-1 on a power play goal at 4:14 of the third period.

“I think everyone from our team wanted to score,” Zacha said. “I think the 5-on-3, it was a momentum change, and then we took a penalty, so that kind of took it away from us right away. It’s one of those games where we just have to learn how to win those, and we’ve done it the whole season, so we have to keep working on it.”

Johnathan Huberdeau got the goal back at 6:23 to push the lead back to two, 3-1.

“We played well defensively, and I think we want to play as much time in their zone [as possible], so I think we don’t play defense,” Huberdeau said. “That’s our goal, but yeah, we’ve got to think about defense, and that’s what we did tonight, so we’ve got to keep doing that.”

The Flames scored another power play goal for the 4-1 final when Noah Hanifin struck at 9:44.

“It was a great effort, honestly,” Hanifin said. “Sometimes, coming out of breaks like that, you can be a little rusty in certain areas, but I thought we played a really complete game at both ends of the ice.”

Nazem Kadri had three assists in the win.

“A pack of hyenas can take down a lion,” Kadri said. “So that’s the type of mentality that we need, is playing as a team and everyone chipping in. When we do that, we can accomplish great things.”

Jeremy Swayman made 25 saves in the loss.