Goals by Milan Lucic, Blake Coleman and Nikita Zadorov staked the Flames to a three-goal, first-period lead and Calgary held on for a 4-1 home-ice victory over the New York Islanders on Friday.
Nazem Kadri also scored for the Flames, who are on a 6-2-1 run. Goaltender Jacob Markstrom made 24 saves, including a pair of key second-period breakaway stops on Casey Cizikas and Jean-Gabriel Pageau.
Zach Parise scored for the Islanders, who were without their leading point producer, Mathew Barzal, a forward who was riding a five-game goal-scoring streak in which he tallied six times. Goalie Semyon Varlamov stopped 17 shots.
The Islanders finished a disappointing road trip with three losses in four games.
Lucic’s third goal of the season gave the Flames an early lead at the 4:36 mark. Kadri forced a turnover and Jonathan Huberdeau sent a pass to Lucic for the one-timer from the right circle for his third goal of the season.
Coleman doubled the lead 89 seconds later with his seventh of the campaign. Coleman took the feed on a rush as he split the defenders. His weak backhand shot was blocked, but the veteran forward lifted the rebound into the cage.
Zadorov scored for the second consecutive game to make it a 3-0 affair when he sent a seeing-eye slap shot from the blue line that took advantage of a screen at 14:21 of the first period. It was his sixth goal of the campaign.
The Flames scored three times on their first five shots on net.
Parise scored with 59.2 seconds remaining in the opening frame to put the visitors on the board. Parise caught the defender flat-footed in the high slot to gain a shooting lane and converted a top-corner wrist shot for his 12th goal of the season.
However, Kadri — who was named to the All-Star Game on Thursday — snuffed New York’s comeback hopes at 6:59 of the third period by threading a sharp-angled, short-side shot from the bottom of the left circle for his 15th of the season.
–Field Level Media
