In Calgary, the visiting San Jose Sharks’ Filip Zadina hit for a pair of goals and four points on Thursday night in a 6-3 win over the Flames.
Mackenzie Blackwood made 31 saves in the win.
The Sharks moved to 15-33-5..
Justin Bailey scored once and had two assists in the win.
“Things haven’t been easy for us as a group, but I think it’s the one thing that’s been a staple throughout the whole year, we maintain a positive attitude and we’ve maintained trust and belief in the system of what we’re doing,” Bailey said. “Nights like tonight when all things seem to kind of go in your favor, it feels good as a group.”
Luke Kunin also hit for a double in the win.
The Flames took a 1-0 lead in the opening stanza on a marker from Nazem Kadri at 4:19.
The Sharks replied when Mikael Granlund knotted the match, 1-1,at 4:52 of the middle frame.
Bailey hot for his first of the night at 7:50 to give the Sharks a 2-1 lead.
“Just not playing hard with the puck, not executing,” Weegar said. “Trying to force plays that aren’t there when you can make the simple play. That kind of led to the downfall as well, making plays that weren’t there thinking it was going to be an easy game. That starts on the back end with myself included. Got to be better, for sure.”
Luke Kunin pushed the Sharks up 3-1 at 12:30 off a power play strike.
Calgary responded when Mikael Backlund trimmed the deficit to 3-2 at 19:40 with a wrister from the right circle.
The Flames dropped to 25-24-5 off their second straight loss.
“Disappointing,” Calgary defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said. “And I thought we thought it was going to be an easy game, and then we just got outworked and outcompeted. That’s not normally like us.”
Zadina picked up his first of the game at 4:38 of the third period to push the lead to 4-2.
He collected his double just 37 seconds later to balloon the lead to 5-2.
“It felt pretty good, obviously,” Zadina said. “We haven’t scored as a line in a little bit, but we got rewarded for the work we’ve done recently.”
Kunin hit his double at 15:30 to make it 6-2 to San Jose..
Kuzmenko added his second of the game at 16:40 for the 6-3 final count on the scoreboard..
“You think it’s going to be easier than other games, and it’s not,” the Flames’Â Jonathan Huberdeau said. “At the end of the day, they’re still a good team, they’re in the NHL. They came out and had a bad start, but they can play. They worked hard tonight, and we just weren’t ready to play.”
Dustin Wolf made 25 saves in the loss.
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