Calgary Flames 5 at Dallas Stars 1

The Flames entered Dallas to begin a quick two game pre-Christmas trip against the Stars. Calgary was sliding heading into the game, having lost three straight but snapped that streak with a strong 5-1 win over the Stars.

Scoring

1st Period

12:17 - CGY Mangiapane (7) (Lindholm, Tkachuk)

12:49 - DAL Gurianov (8) (Dowling, Polak)

2nd Period

12:28 - CGY Tkachuk (14) (Lindholm, Monahan) - PPG

14:21 - CGY Monahan (11) (Tkachuk, Lindholm) - PPG

3rd Period

10:21 - CGY Backlund (4) (Ryan, Rittich) - PPG

17:56 - CGY Ryan (6) (Rieder, Giordano) - EN

Recap

Powerplay struggles? The Flames haven’t heard of it. Calgary scored 3 straight powerplay goals during the second and third periods of Sunday’s game, and finished 3/5 on the night.

Andrew Mangiapane opened the scoring midway through the first, one-timing an Elias Lindholm feed under Ben Bishop’s blocker. However the jubilation was short lived, as Dennis Gurianov powered past Noah Hanifin and roofed a shot over David Rittich just 32 seconds later.

It would be the Czech netminder’s only blemish on the night.

The Flames added two powerplay goals just under 2 minutes apart in the second. Both goals were set up beautifully by Elias Lindholm, who ended the night with 3 assists.

Mikael Backlund had to tensely wait for a coach’s challenge, before being officially awarded his first goal since NOVEMBER 7TH. Oof. Backlund powered past Miro Heiskanen before burying his own rebound on Ben Bishop.

Derek Ryan would add an empty net goal to seal the night, and David Rittich finished with 26 saves.

Of Note

Rasmus Andersson received a misconduct in the third, and with less than 10 minutes left in the game, was forced to leave. David Rittich recorded a point on Backlund’s goal.

Flame of the Game

The Powerplay

Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Also, a nod to David Rittich’s performance, but the Flames power-play stole the show. Coming into Sunday, the Flames owned the 19th ranked unit, at 18%.

The Flames will take on the Minnesota Wild in an afternoon affair tomorrow, but we won’t be covering it as we support our California SB Nation sites. You can read about that here.