Flames at Senators
The first-place Calgary Flames conclude their three-game trip through Quebec and Ontario when they play the Ottawa Senators on Saturday afternoon. Calgary, which is in a virtual tie with Arizona in a Pacific Division that features the top five teams separated by two points, bounced back from a 2-0 loss to Montreal on Monday with a 2-1 shootout victory over Toronto on Thursday as goaltender David Rittich stole the show with 35 saves.
"... You want to reward him. You want to do everything in your power to win the game for him,” Flames left wing Matthew Tkachuk told reporters about Rittich. “I mean, he was our best player tonight. Easily. And for us to reward him, that was definitely on my mind and I know it was on the rest of the guys’ minds.” Ottawa has lost nine straight (0-5-4) after a 4-2 setback to Vegas on Thursday. "When you’re a young team, learning how to win, a lot of these games could have been won easily, especially the three prior ones to this when we went to overtime and I thought we played pretty good games," Senators forward Connor Brown told reporters. “It’s important for us to not get discouraged and stay as positive as possible in a situation like this.” Calgary has won four straight meetings after a 3-1 victory Nov. 30 behind a pair of goals from Elias Lindholm.
TIME: 4 p.m. ET. TV: Sportsnet West, TSN5, RDS
ABOUT THE FLAMES (26-18-5): Johnny Gaudreau and Tkachuk share the club lead at 38 points apiece with Tkachuk missing the scoresheet in the last four games and Gaudreau in the past two. Lindholm and Sean Monahan (399 career points) each have 36 points with Lindholm scoring four goals in the last five contests. Rittich is 3-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average and .963 save percentage in three games versus Ottawa.
ABOUT THE SENATORS (16-23-8): Anthony Duclair leads the team with 21 goals and 32 points, but hasn't recorded a point in five games and hasn't scored in nine contests. Jean-Gabriel Pageau (19 goals, 31 points, club-best plus-13) was a late scratch Thursday with an upper-body injury. Brown has 29 points after recording a goal and an assist in each of the last two games.
OVERTIME
1. Calgary C Derek Ryan (25 points) scored his ninth goal of the season Thursday and has two in his last four games.
2. Ottawa is 3-for-23 with the man advantage in its last eight games, raising the league's worst power-play percentage to 11.6.
3. The Flames had the sixth-best penalty-killing unit in the league (83 percent) entering Friday.