Andrei Kuzmenko scored the shootout winner to give the visiting Vancouver Canucks a 4-3 victory over the struggling Calgary Flames on Wednesday.
Bo Horvat, Conor Garland and Sheldon Dries scored in regulation for the Canucks, who have won four of five games and six consecutive road affairs. Goaltender Spencer Martin made 35 saves.
Mikael Backlund, Andrew Mangiapane and Trevor Lewis tallied for the Flames, who have dropped four straight games, the last three in extra time. Dillon Dube collected two assists and goalie Jacob Markstrom stopped 24 shots as well as collecting one assist.
Kuzmenko buried a perfect shot from the slot with his first career shootout attempt, the lone skater for either team to convert in the shootout. Vancouver’s last five victories have come in extra time.
Proof it was to be a wild affair took only a couple of minutes, with the Canucks staking a 2-0 edge just 108 seconds into the clash. Horvat opened the scoring with his 21st goal of the season, a nifty deflection of Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s point shot at the 1:14 mark. It was only the second shot Markstrom faced.
The next one also found the net. Garland was left alone deep in the left circle and ripped a short-side, top-corner shot 34 seconds later for his fifth of the season.
The deficit awoke the Flames, who gained control and evened the score before the first intermission. Backlund scored his first goal in 19 games with a perfect redirect of Dube’s pass for a power-play goal just before the midway point of the frame.
Then, Mangiapane evened the score when he converted a wide-open chance from the slot set up by Nazem Kadri for his seventh of the season at 16:09.
It was soon Vancouver’s turn to erase a deficit. Lewis put Calgary ahead at 3:51 of the second period when he banked a rebound chance off Martin for his sixth goal of the campaign. However, Dries made it a 3-3 clash two minutes later by lifting a sharp-angled shot from the left circle for his third goal.
Despite a litany of scoring chances for both sides, neither team could find the winner before the shootout.
–Field Level Media
