The Canadian Press
Laurence Heinen
CALGARY–The Calgary Flames are one of the hottest teams in the NHL right now but they know they’re still not perfect.
Sean Monahan had a goal and an assist as the Flames beat the N.Y. Islanders 5-2 yesterday afternoon to earn their seventh-straight win.
Four of Calgary’s goals came in a span of less than five minutes.
“You have to pile on as many points as you can on these streaks but keep trying to get better,” noted Flames’ captain Mark Giordano.
“The key now for us is to not let any parts of our games slip,” he stressed.
“Here and there you see a few mistakes that we shouldn’t be making, but we have to clean those up and keep going forward.”
Michael Frolik, TJ Brodie, Micheal Ferland, and Kris Versteeg also scored for the Flames (36-26-4), who also have won three in a row on home ice.
“It was nice to get those goals and to get them in the first period,” noted Monahan.
“They didn’t let up, though,” he added. “They kept coming, the Islanders there.
“They’re a good team so I think we might’ve taken our foot of the gas a little bit and we definitely shouldn’t have,” he added.
Making his fourth-straight start in goal for the Flames, Brian Elliott had 33 saves to pick up his sixth-straight win.
Elliott has gone 7-0-1 since his last regulation time loss on Feb. 5, when he made 28 saves during a 4-3 defeat in New York to the Rangers.
“[Elliott] has been playing great and keeping us in games here,” Monahan said.
John Tavares and Jason Chimera scored for the Islanders (30-23-11), who are in the midst of a nine-game road trip on which they have gone 3-2-1 so far.
“Obviously, they’re playing with a lot of confidence and they had some jump playing at home with the way they’ve been playing,” noted Tavares, who thought the Islanders were playing well until Calgary’s surge late in the first.
“We had done an okay job up until that point, but then we just really shot ourselves in the foot,” he admitted.
“When you give up four goals like that, it’s hard to win in this league.”
Thomas Greiss started in goal for the Islanders and stopped 17-of-21 shots he faced in the first period before being replaced by Jean-Francois Berube, who finished with 15 saves.
Greiss had a great start to the game as he stopped the first 16 shots he faced before the Flames erupted for four goals in a span of 4:40 late in the first period.
Islanders’ coach Doug Weight said he’s definitely going to consider making some changes to his lineup heading into New York’s next game tomorrow in Edmonton against the Oilers.
“Obviously I’m not going to, 20 minutes after the game, figure that out, but I have a full notecard of information that I took throughout the game,” noted Weight.
“I’m going to watch the game again tonight [Sunday]–that should be fun–in a dark room,” he added.
“For sure, I’ll figure it out.”
Elsewhere in the NHL, Vancouver nipped Anaheim 2-1, Minnesota beat San Jose 3-1, Columbus downed New Jersey 3-0, Pittsburgh edged Buffalo 4-3, St. Louis blanked Colorado 3-0, and Carolina shaded Arizona 2-1.