Michael Stone made his 500th career game extra memorable by collecting a goal and an assist to pace the visiting Calgary Flames to a 4-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday.
Elias Lindholm, Tyler Toffoli and Matthew Tkachuk also scored for the first-place Flames (42-19-9, 93 points), who are six points ahead of the second-place Edmonton Oilers in the Pacific Division. Calgary’s Jacob Markstrom made 26 saves, among them clutch ones against Derek Grant and Dominik Simon in the third period.
Trevor Zegras and Adam Henrique replied for the Ducks (28-32-12, 68 points), who have just one win in their past 14 games (1-10-3). Anthony Stolarz stopped 24 shots.
Lindholm’s team-high 36th goal of the season opened the scoring 12:33 into the game. Johnny Gaudreau draw all of the attention to himself while he had the puck deep in the zone, and he threaded a backhand pass to Lindholm in the slot to one-time a shot.
Toffoli doubled the lead just past the midway point. During an odd-man rush, Toffoli grabbed the puck as he drove to the net and lifted a backhander home for his 19th of the campaign.
Zegras provided a much-needed boost for the hosts with 1:49 left in the middle frame. After getting the puck low in the right circle, Zegras spun and snapped home a high shot for his 19th goal of the season.
Stone collected the eventual game-winning goal just past the midway point of the third period. Playing in just his seventh game of the season, Stone collected his first of the campaign when he wired a point-shot slapper off the crossbar and into the net.
Henrique made it a one-goal game less than two minutes later by converting on the short side from the left faceoff dot for his team’s first power-play goal in nine games, and his 15th tally of the season.
Tkachuk’s empty-netter, his 33rd goal of the season, rounded out the scoring with 35 seconds remaining. Gaudreau set it up for his second assist of the game and 97th point of the season.
Calgary’s Andrew Mangiapane also had two assists.
–Field Level Media