The Calgary Flames will host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday with both teams aiming to build off a nail-biting victory.
The Flames return home following a 3-2 road victory over the Seattle Kraken on Sunday, while the Maple Leafs kicked off a four-game road trip with a 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
Toronto built a 4-1 lead on Edmonton in the third period but needed 45 saves from Joseph Woll to fend off the Oilers.
“I’m not critiquing the wins, because a win’s a win, but I think we could have pushed a little bit more on them,” Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “Woll was great, guys battled, it was a battle, playoff-type game.”
Toronto had managed just one goal in each of its three straight losses entering the Edmonton game, but the Maple Leafs matched that total 12:50 into Saturday’s contest.
“I was looking to get that jump back, get in a rhythm, and this was (a) step in the right direction,” said forward Matthew Knies, who scored Toronto’s second goal against the Oilers after missing a pair of games due to an upper-body injury.
The Maple Leafs’ three-game slide gave a few teams behind Toronto in the standings a chance to draw closer in the fight for second place in the Atlantic Division. Toronto entered Monday four points ahead of the third-place Ottawa Senators, who faced the Nashville Predators later that night.
The Maple Leafs may be without defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who missed practice on Monday due to a lower-body injury. He is listed as day-to-day.
Calgary’s win over the Kraken came on short rest. After losing 3-1 at home to the Detroit Red Wings late Saturday night, the Flames didn’t arrive in Seattle until 3 a.m. local time on Sunday.
“That was a tough back-to-back, a tough turnaround,” said Morgan Frost, who scored his first goal for Calgary on Sunday after being acquired from the Philadelphia Flyers last week. “Obviously, I’m really new here, but it kind of shows the resiliency that this group has. Everybody was confident all day and in between periods, and just a great attitude in the room. It felt like we were going to win all day.”
Frost opened the scoring against the Kraken just over 14 minutes into the game, and the Flames built off that momentum with a pair of first-period power-play goals. From that point, they held on just enough against a Seattle squad that controlled the play through the final two periods.
“There were a lot of things that we did well, the power play, the penalty kill, and I thought we were skating early,” Calgary coach Ryan Huska said. “Of course, we took water on as it went on, but we’ve had a tough stretch of games as well, with some travel issues (Saturday) night, so I’m really, really pleased.”
The Flames hold the Western Conference’s second wild-card position and are one point back of the Los Angeles Kings for third in the Pacific Division, a mean feat for a team that most pegged to be near the bottom of the standings.
Among the reasons Calgary is battling for a playoff spot is the resurgence of forward Jonathan Huberdeau, who scored his 20th goal of the season on Sunday.
“Been around the net more this year, so been fortunate to get some bounces, and score some goals there,” Huberdeau said. “Hopefully can keep going, can have some more.”
–Field Level Media
