Oilers dim Flames, 7-3

The whole, shiny new coach thing in Calgary lost some of its luster on Wednesday night.

The Edmonton Oilers scored the first three goals of the game in Calgary, then tacked on four straight markers in the third period en route to 7-3 shelling of the Flames.

Mike Smith made 30 saves in the win.

“You don’t want to lose three in a row,” Edmonton’s Zack Kassian said. “It’s important to nip it in the bud quick and I think we did a good job from top to bottom. Played a good road game. But we really can’t take our foot off the gas.”

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins got the party started in the first period when he staked the Oilers to a 1-0 lead.

Jesse Puljujarvi doubled the lead in the first period, and Dominik Kahun scored in the middle frame to push the advantage to 3-0.

Elias Lindholm got on back for the Flames to make it 3-1.

“This team, this group of players have to learn, they don’t have the firepower to not put themselves in a position to be good defenders or to check or to play well in their zone,” Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said. “If they don’t play that way … look at the shots, they end up 33-30. I don’t think we’re going to score eight goals and beat Edmonton 8-7.”

Connor McDavid opened the third period with a strike to push the lead to 4-1.

Alex Chiasson(power play), Darnell Nurse and Kassian propelled the Oilers to a 7-1 lead.

Calgary put some window dressing on the scoreboard with two goals from Mikael Backlund  and Johnny Gaudreau .

“We’ve got to learn from this game,” the Flames’ Mark Giordano said. “We’re playing a team that has just as much, if not more, firepower. We have to understand if you’re going to play open against teams like this and give them chances, they’re going to capitalize. We have to learn from this.”

Jacob Markstrom made 23 saves in the loss.

“It was a [bad] night by me,” Markstrom said. “I feel bad. I feel terrible. They scored on every chance they got, pretty much. It’s my job to keep the puck out of the net and I didn’t do that. It’s embarrassing and frustrating for sure.”