Karri Ramo made 35 saves for the Calgary Flames, who won their seventh consecutive game by defeating the Dallas Stars 3-1 at American Airlines Center. But Ramo was quick to credit his teammates for the streak continuing.
Sean Monahan, Dougie Hamilton and Mason Raymond had goals for Calgary, which has won 11 straight games in December, dating back to last year. The Flames have won consecutive road games for the first time this season. Johnny Oduya had a first-period shorthanded goal for Dallas, which has lost two of its past three games.
Ramo's biggest save of the night came 5:35 into the third period when he made a spectacular windmill glove stop on a wrist shot from the slot by Alex Goligoski, who was attempting to score off a rebound after Ramo had denied Stars captain Jamie Benn. Ramo also made a save on Benn's tap-in bid in front of the net at 10:03 during a power play.
Hamilton broke a 1-1 tie with 29 seconds left in the first period, snapping a shot from the right circle that hit the right post and went past Stars goaltender Kari Lehtonen.
Oduya's fourth goal of the season and second in as many games came at 12:44 of the first period and gave the Stars an early lead. Oduya scored off a rebound after Ramo stopped Vernon Fiddler's wrist shot from the right circle. The goal came nine seconds after Cody Eakin was penalized for tripping. But Calgary scored twice before the period ended.
Monahan tied the game at 15:29, capping a long rush up the left side by beating Lehtonen top shelf to the short side from the left circle for his 11th of the season. Hamilton put the Flames ahead 4:03 later with his fourth. Raymond scored his third goal of the season when he beat Lehtonen top shelf to the far side with a wrist shot from the high slot with 2:30 remaining in the second period. Lehtonen was screened by Mikael Backlund and David Jones and didn't see Raymond's shot until it was too late.
Lehtonen finished with 24 saves before being lifted for an extra attacker with 2:30 remaining in the third period. The Stars managed only one shot on goal with the sixth skater. Dallas still has the fourth-ranked power play in the NHL (21.6 percent). But the Stars were 0-for-3 with the man advantage on Thursday and are 5-for-45 in their past 14 games. It's a definite area of concern for Ruff.
Stars Quotes
Jason Spezza: "They came back against us [4-3 on Dec. 1] and haven't lost since. They played well, but if we put the puck in the net a little better we'd have a good chance to win that game."Jamie Benn: "[Ramo] was pretty good. I think he saw a lot of the shots that we put at him, and any goalie in this league will stop those."
Johnny Oduya: "They're a fast team. Their D is very involved in the play. They're smart defensively. In their end, they don't make that many mistakes so it's tough to get in there and get scoring chances. I think we had enough chances to win today, sometimes that's what it is."
Lindy Ruff: "We talked about really cleaning up our start, and I thought we cleaned up our start. Our puck movement and our play in the neutral zone was good. We make a big mistake, and we gave them some life. There wasn't much life in that club to that point. They couldn't even get over the blue line for the most part on their power play. That five minutes [late in the first] was the difference in the game really."
"It's struggling. We're a little bit locked up. We're not making quick enough decisions, and almost every decision we do make is the wrong one right now. The execution part of it, we got in a couple of times and then we didn't make the right play. We'll come out of it. It's going to take some hard work."
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