Vancouver, British Columbia: Even after winning a road game by three goals on Saturday night, the Calgary Flames felt fortunate.
Dougie Hamilton had two goals and an assist, and Jaromir Jagr got his first point for Calgary as the Flames beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 despite having to kill off five penalties in the opening 20 minutes.
“Our penalty killers, they did a good job, but we got lucky,” Calgary coach Glen Gulutzan said. “You can’t do that. We’re dodging bullets here and we’ve got to get that cleaned up.”
Mark Giordano, Johnny Gaudreau and Travis Hamonic also scored for the Flames (4-2-0), who got 27 saves from Mike Smith. Vancouver finished an ugly 0 for 7 on the power play with just three shots on goal.
The previous night, the Flames allowed two goals in seven man-advantage opportunities against Ottawa during a 6-0 loss on home ice.
“Penalties are coming in bunches right now,” Giordano said. “We’ve got to move our feet more.”
Derek Dorsett and Brock Boeser had the goals for Vancouver (1-2-1). Jacob Markstrom stopped 22 shots.
The Canucks dropped their third straight home game, second in regulation, after opening the season with a victory at Rogers Arena.
“We had a good opportunity in the first period. ... You get five power plays against a team that played last night, we need to get a goal,” coach Travis Green said. “They got some momentum off their penalty kill.”
Hamonic pinched down from the point and fired a quick shot through Markstrom to snap a 1-all tie at 10:57 of the second period after all five Canucks skaters collapsed below the hash marks on a scrum at the side of the net.
Smith, who made his sixth straight start to open the season despite allowing five goals on 22 shots on Friday, robbed Boeser on a great glove save with just more than two minutes to go in the period.
That stop proved to be crucial as Hamilton’s drive from the blue line past Markstrom moments later at 17:59 stretched Calgary’s advantage to 3-1 through 40 minutes.
“Anytime you don’t play well, you want to get back in there as soon as possible,” Smith said. “We looked at the schedule coming up here — we have some days to practice and get some rest.”
