In Calgary, the New York Rangers’ Alexis Lafreniere’s third period power play goal tied the game with the Flames on Saturday night to force an extra session.
Mikael Backlund scored on the power play with 1:40 gone in the extra session to help the Flames recover for a 3-2 win.
“Every day is a new day,” Backlund said. “Every day you’ve got to recharge between games and come out every game with full-out energy and just leave it out on the ice. It’s a [Stanley Cup] Playoff game every game for us. We can’t afford to lose too many more. We have to go on a streak here and bring it every night and we’ll have a really good chance to win games.”
The win snapped the Rangers’ seven-game win streak but extended their point streak to 8-0-2.
Jacob Markstrom made 189 saves in the win.
“It’s a good team on the other side,” Calgary’s Jonathan Huberdeau said. “We had a really good start and stuck with it. They came back, but we showed some character.”
Andrew Mangiapane and Nazem Kadri scored with less than a minute gone in the game for a 2-0 lead to the Flames.
The two strikes came just eight seconds apart to stun the Rangers.
Calgary moved to 26-19-11.
Vladimir Tarasenko got the Rangers back in the game in the middle frame off an errant feed from Vincent Trocheck to cut the Flames lead in half, 2-1.
“I think we should start better,” Tarasenko said. “It’s nice to win games when you’re coming back, but you should play better at the start. Everybody knows that we can play better. I don’t think anybody’s satisfied with the result today.”
The Rangers dropped to 33-14-9.
“Obviously you want the two points and every point matters, especially [the Metropolitan] Division and [the Eastern] Conference is tough right now,” Trocheck said. “It’s going to come down to the wire so every point matters. At the same time, going down early like we did and getting a point out of it is respectable. We came back hard.”
New York was 1-for-2 on the power play, the Flames connected on one of their three chances in the match.
They ended their four-game roadie with a 3-0-1 record.
Jaroslav Halak made 29 saves in the Rangers loss,
“We hung him out to dry early,” New York defenseman Ryan Lindgren said. “Some of the saves he made were unbelievable.”
Halak settled down after the first minute of the game to keep the Rangers in the match to earn the point.
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