EDMONTON — The Calgary Flames haven’t had much go right this season, but everything certainly came together for one night on Saturday.
Curtis Glencross had a hat trick and Matt Stajan had a goal and three assists as the Flames scored four goals in a 3:05 span of the second period to come away with a devastating 8-1 victory over the rival Edmonton Oilers.
“What a great game,” said Flames head coach Bob Hartley. “We wanted to redeem ourselves from (Friday) night’s game. I could see that the boys were not very impressed with the performance from last night. We just worked very simple, we were very effective and we scored some great goals.”
Mike Cammalleri, Mark Giordano, Paul Byron and Kevin Westgarth also scored for the Flames (29-35-7) who have won four of their last six and sit 26th overall in the NHL.
Nobody was expecting that kind of offensive explosion, however.
“It’s been a challenge for us to produce offence this year,” Cammalleri said. “It’s nice to see pucks go in like they did. You don’t expect to score eight goals every night, but it’s nice to get that feeling where you feel like the puck is going to go in the net for us.”
It was an emotional game for Stajan, who pointed up to the sky after scoring on a penalty shot in honour of his newborn son, who died earlier this month.
“That one means a lot,” he said. “It’s been obviously not easy and that one was for the little guy. It felt good and it gave us some puck-luck after too. We’ll move on now and I’ll remember that one forever.”
Jeff Petry replied for the Oilers (25-38-9), who have lost two in a row and remain in second last place in the league.
“It’s pretty obvious how bad we played tonight. We are obviously very frustrated with how we played this game,” said Oilers winger David Perron.
“It is pretty embarrassing. We all know how bad it was and that the fans weren’t happy. If I was sitting in the stands, I would have been doing the same thing they were doing.”
Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins agreed that the fans were within their rights to voice their disproval to the team.
“That was probably the longest last 15 minutes of a game that I have ever been involved with,” he said. “I apologize to the fans who were here tonight and had to watch it. It was painful on the bench and I’m sure it was painful in the stands. We hope it is just a blip on the radar because we have been playing pretty well lately.