Flames 5 Oilers 4 SO
CALGARY — Brendan Morrison scored twice and Alex Tanguay had the shootout winner Tuesday night as the streaking Calgary Flames made it five wins in six games with a dramatic 5-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers.
The Flames looked in control leading 4-1 late in the second period but that lead was erased by a furious comeback by the Oilers.
It would take shootout saves by Miikka Kiprusoff against Ales Hemsky, Jordan Eberle and Dustin Penner to secure the Flames’ third win in a row.
Tanguay sent the crowd home happy, firing a shot under the crossbar on the Flames’ second shot after Niclas Hagman was stopped on Calgary’s first try.
Jay Bouwmeester and Curtis Glencross also scored for Calgary (6-3-0).
Kurtis Foster, Jordan Eberle, Magnus Paajarvi and Tom Gilbert scored for Edmonton (2-4-1), which is winless in its last five. The Oilers play seven of its next nine games on the road where they’re 2-22-3 dating back to mid-December of last season.
Ryan Whitney had two assists to extend his points streak to four games (six assists).
Trailing 4-1 and being outplayed by a wide margin, Edmonton got a spark when Eberle scored his third goal of the season with 17 seconds left in the second period.
Looking like a completely different team, the young Oilers came out firing in the third period outshooting Calgary 17-10.
Edmonton cut its deficit to one goal at 6:52. Paajarvi, another of the Oilers rookies, took a pass from Andrew Cogliano and bowled his way to the net with the puck deflecting in off the arm of Kiprusoff.
The Flames goaltender, celebrating his 34th birthday, had no chance on the tying goal at 9:19 as Gilbert whipped a shot into the top corner through a maze of bodies in front.
Gilbert had another chance minutes later breaking in on a two-on-one with Hemsky but the Oilers defenceman whistled a shot high and wide.
The first 40 minutes were all Calgary.
Morrison opened the scoring on the power play at 5:52, ripping a wicked slapshot past Nikolai Khabibulin from the blue-line.
Foster tied it less than three minutes later, also on a power play, but Bouwmeester’s first goal of the year, again on a power play, restored Calgary’s lead at 19:40.
Calgary went up 3-1 at 2:02 of the second when Mikael Backlund pounced on a Ryan Whitney turnover and set up Glencross.
Morrison put the Flames up by three at 9:48 scoring Calgary’s league-leading third short-handed goal.
After being stopped on a short-handed breakaway from his own blue-line earlier in the period, Morrison got an identical opportunity and this time beat Khabibulin high on the blocker side.
Edmonton entered the game a dreadful 9-for-18 on the penalty kill over its previous four games and the percentage got worse when they surrendered goals both times they were shorthanded in the first.
However, their penalty kill unit would rebound with a key kill of Colin Fraser’s instigating minor in the second period to keep the score 4-1.
Fraser went after Mark Giordano after the Flames defenceman levelled Taylor Hall with a heavy hit along the boards.
There were three scraps in the game, the most unusual pairing occuring when infrequent fighters Olli Jokinen and Sam Gagner exchanged blows at the end of the first period.
Notes: Foster left the game in the second period and did not return. No update on his condition was provided. . . The Oilers and Flames meet don’t meet again until New Year’s Day. . .It was Morrison’s first two-goal game since Dec. 23, 2008, when he scored twice as a member of the Anaheim Ducks in a 4-3 loss in Calgary. . . Calgary D Steve Staios returned to the line-up after sitting out the past two games. . . Jokinen played in his 900th NHL game. . . Khabibulin is one of only three goalies to have appeared in every minute of every game. Kari Lehtonen with Dallas and Montreal’s Carey Price are the others.