Flames score by committee during spree

Scoring can be contagious.

Symptoms may include swelling confidence, sizzling shots and stuffed stats sheets, and you don’t need a stethoscope to figure out the Calgary Flames are enjoying an outbreak of sorts.

“It starts to feel good, and it’s almost an internal competition,” grinned Flames winger Kris Versteeg.

The Flames, these days, are in a great spot.

After Sunday’s 5-2 shellacking of the New York Islanders at the Saddledome, they’re riding a sevengame winning streak and now have a chance to match their longest spree since going eight straight in November 2005.

They’re sitting pretty in the first wild-card slot in the NHL’s Western Conference, suddenly a whole whack of points up on the outsiders.

And they’re scoring. All of ’em, it seems. Michael Frolik started Sunday’s first-period outburst with a sharp-angle fire. Within five minutes, the hosts were up 4-0, with T.J. Brodie, Micheal Ferland and Sean Monahan getting in on the fun. Versteeg itched that feeling of envy in the third, blasting a slapper after a back-and-forth with centre Sam Bennett on a three-on-one rush.

“We have a really deep lineup,” said Flames captain Mark Giordano. “Today was a good example of that.” Not the only example, though. Far from it. Imagine, back in September, if you were told that Johnny Gaudreau’s numbers would dip, that Bennett wouldn’t have the breakout that everybody seemed to be expecting and that Brodie and Giordano wouldn’t be producing as much offence from the back-end as in the past couple of campaigns.

You’d figure the Flames would be toast, right?

Not the case. In fact, they already have 10 different marksmen with 10-plus goals, including each of their top nine forwards.

Heading into Sunday’s action around the NHL, only three other troupes could claim double digits in, uh, double digits: the frontrunning Washington Capitals, the Minnesota Wild and the Ottawa Senators.

“If I had zero goals and we’re in the playoffs, that’s great,” said Monahan, who inched ahead of Backlund for the team lead with Sunday’s snipe, his 21st of the campaign. “It’s a full team effort. This is a fun team to be on right now.”