The Calgary Flames feel they've corrected their early-season struggles. Mikael Backlund had a goal and an assist, and Karri Ramo made 31 saves to help the Flames to a 4-2 victory against the San Jose Sharks at Scotiabank Saddledome.
Calgary has won three straight for the first time this season. Markus Granlund, Sean Monahan and Michael Frolik scored for the Flames, who have won seven in a row at home. It's Calgary's longest home winning streak since winning eight straight Feb. 23-March 27, 2013.
Chris Tierney and Joe Thornton scored for the Sharks, who have lost four straight games and five of six since sweeping a six-game road trip.
Logan Couture, playing his first game since Oct. 15 after missing the past 23 because of a fractured right fibula, had an assist and two minor penalties in 12:38 of ice time.
Frolik scored 2:27 into the second period, batting a rebound off Backlund's initial shot out of midair and over San Jose goalie Martin Jones to give Calgary a 3-2 lead. Monahan beat Jones for what would've been his second goal of the night at 3:26 of the second, but DeBoer successfully challenged that Monahan was offside prior to scoring. Jones, who allowed three goals on 11 shots, was replaced by Alex Stalock after the challenge.
Calgary increased its lead to 4-2 at 8:59 of the second. Backlund took a pass from Mark Giordano in the slot and beat Stalock. Thornton hit the crossbar at 7:36 of the third, and Flames defenseman Deryk Engelland dove to block a wraparound attempt by Dainius Zubrus at 11:39 to keep Calgary up two.
Of Calgary's 11 wins, four have been in regulation.
The Flames scored on their first shot for the second straight game. Off the rush, Jiri Hudler slowed up before sending a cross-slot pass to Granlund, whose quick shot beat Jones over the shoulder to put Calgary up 1-0 at 1:45 of the first.
San Jose tied the game 1-1 at 4:31. Ramo stopped Zubrus' initial backhand and Joonas Donskoi's rebound before Tierney scored on the third chance. Each team scored a power-play goal in the first period. Monahan redirected Giordano's slap-pass between Jones' legs at 8:07, and Thornton deflected Patrick Marleau's point shot by Ramo at 11:02. Hartley used his challenge, contending that Thornton had interfered with Ramo, but a video review upheld the call on the ice.
Sharks Bites
Peter DeBoer: "Taking nothing away from Calgary, they deserved the two points, but it's disappointing when you beat yourself. We took eight minor penalties and handed them another couple goals on odd-man rushes, uncharacteristic stuff for us that we've got to clean up.""It looked like [Couture's] first game back in 23, He's obviously pushing to back in, a lot of courage for coming out and doing that. I can count on one hand the number of practices he's had. We knew that he was going to have to work himself in, and that's what it looked like tonight."
"I don't know if I blamed him for any of them. We wanted to make a change. We wanted to kind of shock the team a little bit. At the same time, we need our best players to be better than their best players, and that includes our goalie."
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