After three weeks off, the Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks clashed in the Bay Area with two points on the line. The Sharks had some good energy early, but the Flames dug in and produced a really composed, effective road performance.

The Flames got strong goaltending and came from behind to beat the Sharks by a 4-1 score.

Neither team scored in first, but the Sharks had some decent shot volume as they had their legs going early. The Flames largely kept them to the outside, though, and Dustin Wolf helped minimize the damage in net.

First period shots were 16-6 Sharks. Via Natural Stat Trick, 5v5 scoring chances were 11-5 Sharks and high-danger scoring chances were 4-1 Sharks.

77 seconds into second period, though, the Sharks opened the scoring. The Sharks had some extended zone time in the Calgary end and a couple decent looks. Eventually, they broke through, with Tyler Toffoli redirecting a Mario Ferraro point shot past Wolf to give the home side a 1-0 lead.

But as they approached the end of the second, the Flames tied things up. MacKenzie Weegar won a puck battle at the point in the Sharks zone, which gave the puck to Joel Farabee. Farabee made a heck of a pass to find Nazem Kadri in the slot, and he blasted a laser of a shot past Yaroslav Askarov to tie the game at 1-1.

Second period shots were 12-10 Sharks. 5v5 scoring chances were 13-7 Sharks and high-danger scoring chances were 5-3 Sharks.

5:22 into the second period, the Flames grabbed the lead off a rush play. Mikael Backlund entered the Sharks zone, then swung the puck back to Connor Zary, skating behind him a bit as the trailing man. Zary, with space to make a nice shot, did so, and wired a wrister past Askarov to go up 2-1.

Midway through the third, the Flames added to their lead. After an initial rush into the Sharks zone was broken up, Timothy Liljegren tried to throw a pass across the zone for a transition play. But Zary got into the passing lane, blocked the pass, and Kadri collected the puck, waited a sprawling Askarov out, then fired the puck over top of him to give the Flames a 3-1 lead.

Backlund added an empty-netter late to give the Flames a 4-1 victory.

Third period shots were 13-7 Flames. 5v5 scoring chances were 9-7 Flames and high-danger scoring chances were 5-1 Flames.

This was a pretty good road game for the Flames. They were a little flat-footed early, but they defended well to prevent strong scoring chances and they got strong goaltending. They got their feet moving more and more as the game went along, and you could see the Sharks fade as the Flames got better throughout this game.

It wasn’t a perfect 60 minutes, but it was a pretty good outing for the Flames after three weeks off.

It’s joint award time, as the line of Nazem Kadri, Connor Zary and Joel Farabee were great. They had a lot of good energy, made good things happen, and scored three goals between them.

Give the usual stick-tap to Dustin Wolf in net, too. He was superb, especially early on.

We’ll go with Connor Zary’s go-ahead goal early in the third period. The Flames never looked back.

We saw some modified defensive pairings in the third period: MacKenzie Weegar played primarily with Kevin Bahl, while Zach Whitecloud was paired with Yan Kuznetsov. (Joel Hanley and Zayne Parekh stuck together.)

This was Joel Hanley’s 300th NHL game.

Join Cami Kepke and Mike Gould right after the game for After Burner!

The Flames (24-27-6) are back in action on Saturday night when they visit the Los Angeles Kings.

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