Flames 5 Oilers 2
CALGARY — Nigel Dawes scored twice and Rene Bourque had a goal and two assists as the Calgary Flames won 5-2 over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night.
The two provincial rivals entered the game with identical records 6-2-1 records, but it was the Flames that again prevailed in the Battle of Alberta, as they did in two previous meetings in Edmonton.
Tied 1-1 after the first period, the Flames seized control of the game in the second with three consecutive goal and outshooting Edmonton 19-9.
Calgary took its first lead at 3:53 when Dawes got open behind defenceman Theo Peckham and had an empty net as Bourque neatly set him up from behind the net.
Dustin Boyd created the next goal by stripping the puck from defenceman Tom Gilbert deep in the Oilers zone and taking the puck to the net where his rebound was jammed in by Eric Nystrom.
Calgary made it 4-1 at 10:23 of the second on a waist-high deflection by David Moss off a slapshot from Dion Phaneuf. The goal came on the first man advantage of the night for Calgary, which entered the game tied for first in the NHL on the power play.
The Flames ended up 2-for-4 with the extra man while Edmonton was 2-for-8.
A perfect 3-0 on its season-high five-game homestand, next up for Calgary (7-2-1) is a showdown with the Northwest division-leading Colorado Avalanche next Wednesday.
Lubomir Visnovsky and Dustin Penner replied for Edmonton (6-3-1). The Oilers are on the road again Sunday night in Vancouver.
Ahead three goals, Calgary appeared to have the game in hand until penalty trouble late in the second period gave Edmonton a chance to get back into the game.
Flames defenceman Aaron Johnson was serving a cross-checking penalty when a puck squirted out to Penner in front who notched his team-leading eighth goal at 18:35.
Olli Jokinen took another penalty 12 seconds later and that was followed a minute later by a double high-sticking minor to Cory Sarich.
The Oilers opened the third period on the two-man advantage but failed to generate any dangerous scoring chances. Calgary salted the game away on the second goal for Dawes at 12:27.
Calgary outshot Edmonton 38-25, just the second time this season the Flames have outshot the opponent. The Oilers have yet to outshoot an opponent through their first 10 games.
After falling behind early, Calgary tied it at 11:54 of the first period on a pretty short-handed goal by Bourque. As the Flames moved up ice on a 2-on-1, Bourque outraced Denis Grebeshkov to the net where he steered a perfectly placed return pass from Daymond Langkow behind Nikolai Khabibulin.
Edmonton jumped out to an early 1-0 advantage connecting on a power play at 2:25 of the first period. Ales Hemsky spotted Visnovsky breaking in undetected from the far point and zipped him a cross-ice pass that the Russian defenceman one-timed past Miikka Kiprusoff. Kiprusoff stopped 23-of-25 shots to pick up the win, Khabibulin made 33 saves in defeat.
Notes: The return of Moss (upper body) after missing five games bumped Brandon Prust to the sidelines. Prust was coming off a game in which he received a season-high 9:40 in ice time . . . With forwards Mike Comrie and Gilbert Brule both out with the flu, Edmonton dressed seven defencemen including Theo Peckham, who was recalled Friday from Springfield (AHL . . . Edmonton falls to 5-2-1 when scoring first . . . Craig Conroy is the one of the Flames 13 forwards without a goal.