The Calgary Flames have been virtually unbeatable at home. Not so on the road.
Fresh off a franchise-record 10th consecutive win on home ice, Calgary travelled to Vancouver and squandered eight power-play opportunities in a 3-1 loss to the Canucks before a capacity crowd of 18,630 at General Motors Place on Thursday.
Alex Burrows (14) throttles Jarome Iginla in a 3-1 Canucks home win.
(Richard Lam/Canadian Press)
It marked Calgary's fifth straight road loss.
"I don't think we kept it as simple on the road as we have to keep it," Flames head coach Jim Playfair said. "We turned a lot of pucks over and gave up too many quality scoring chances."
Conversely, it was a convincing victory for Vancouver, which got three unanswered goals from Mattias Ohlund, Henrik Sedin and Brendan Morrison.
"Our players didn't shy away from the challenge," Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault said. "Everybody mentioned this was a must game, a statement game, an important game.
"They knew we had to find a way to win this and they took the challenge head on. Played one of our best games of the year."
Roberto Luongo turned aside 21 of 22 shots as the Canucks (16-15-1) won for the fourth time in five games and tied the Flames for third place in the NHL Northwest Division, three points behind front-running Edmonton and one shy of Minnesota in second.
The Oilers trimmed the Wild 3-1.
"The penalty kill was really sharp," Canucks captain Markus Naslund said. "It wasn't a pretty game.
"But we needed it badly. We have struggled against our own division and this was a key win for us."
Matthew Lombardi opened the scoring with a short-handed goal for the Flames (15-11-3), winners in four of their previous five games.
Miikka Kiprusoff managed 24 stops in the loss.
"We can be better than that," Flames captain Jarome Iginla said. "We can skate better than that and we can move the puck better than we did."
Lombardi ignites Flames
Calgary took a 1-0 lead when Lombardi collected a loose puck in the offensive zone, cut unchecked to the net and jammed it by Luongo for his 10th goal of the season at 1:09 of the second period.
After Ohlund's fourth tied it 1-1 at the 2:53 mark, Henrik Sedin finished off a 2-on-1 break with twin brother Daniel to make it 2-1 with 2:29 left in the period.
It was the elder Sedin's first tally in 13 games and fourth overall.
The Canucks carried the momentum of that goal into the third period and were rewarded when Matt Cooke broke up ice and sent a cross-ice pass to Morrison, who blasted a one-timer over Kiprusoff's left shoulder for his eighth with 12:20 remaining.
Vancouver wound up outshooting Calgary 16-6 over the final 20 minutes.
With files from the Canadian Press
