Flames come out hot, extend win streak to 4
The Calgary Flames keep winning on the road, and Andrew Mangiapane’s scoring is a major reason.
Mangiapane had two of Calgary’s four goals in the first period, and the Flames extended their winning streak to four games with a 5-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday.
Milan Lucic, Elias Lindholm and Matthew Tkachuk also scored for the Flames. Calgary backup goalie Dan Vladar made 27 saves.
“We scored on some early opportunities and I think that was the difference in the game,’’ said Mangiapane, who also scored twice in Monday night’s 5-1 over the New York Rangers. “We had a good start. We knew we needed to come out strong and get our legs underneath us.”
The Flames have won all four games on their current road trip, which concludes with a matchup at Pittsburgh on Thursday. The Devils were completing a season-opening fivegame homestand in which they won three times.
The victory was the seventh straight for Calgary over New Jersey. Calgary improved to 3-0-0 against Metropolitan Division teams and 4-0-0 at teams from the Eastern Conference thus far this season.
“We’re learning a lot to play the right way,’’ said Darryl Sutter, who is coaching the Flames for the second time after leading the Kings to Stanley Cup titles in 2012 and 2014. “This team works really hard and is playing together and playing things right.”
LIGHTNING 5, PENGUINS 1 >> Ondrej Palat and Ryan McDonagh scored 10 seconds apart in the second period and Tampa Bay picked up its first regulation win of the year.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 28 shots for the Lightning, who won in Pittsburgh for just the fourth time in their last 17 visits.
GOLDEN KNIGHTS 3, AVALANCHE 1 >> Reilly Smith scored a short-handed goal, Robin Lehner stopped 26 shots and injury-plagued Las Vegas snapped a fourgame losing streak.
PREDATORS 3, SHARKS 1 >> Goalie Juuse Saros made 28 saves to lead Nashville. Matt Duchene, Filip Forsberg and Mikael Granlund scored for the Predators, winners of two straight.
KRAKEN 5, CANADIENS 1 >> Brandon Tanev had two goals and Jordan Eberle added another to give Seattle its first home win in franchise history.
Montreal is last in the East with two points in six games and being outscored 24-11.
WILD 3, CANUCKS 2 >> Mats Zuccarello, Matt Dumba and Jonas Brodin scored, and Minnesota hung on to edge Vancouver.