CALGARY — The Lightning lost 4-2 to the Flames in Calgary on Saturday night, falling behind by three goals after a late comeback attempt fell short.
Tampa Bay finished the five-game road trip to Nashville, Seattle, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary with a 2-3-0 record.
“We were disappointed with the road trip,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s a long road and many days to come here and get the four points. I think we’ve got the points.”
Egor Sharangovich scored in his fifth straight game, ending a four-game losing streak for the Flames. AJ Grier, Mackenzie Weegar and Connor Zary also scored for Calgary, and Jordan Oesterle had two assists.
Dan Bradard stopped 31 shots for the win.
Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos scored for Tampa Bay, and NHL leading scorer Nikita Kucherov also contributed with two assists.
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.
Tampa Bay won 12-0 in the second period of the trip.
“The bottom line is we’ve got to get better overall,” said defenseman Victor Hedman, who returned after missing two games with an upper-body injury. “It starts with the leaders in this room. It took two cycles to wake up. There’s not enough in this league.”
After a scoreless first period, Calgary broke through with three goals in the first seven minutes of the second period.
“I think the second period was probably our best period of the year,” Flames coach Ryan Husker said. “We controlled the play, handled the puck smartly and had a lot of zone time during that period.”
Grier started play at 2:30, picking the top corner on Vasilevskiy’s glove side from just inside the top of the faceoff circle.
Weegar made it 2-0 at the 6:17 mark with a slap shot that weaved through the crowd just inside the far post. His eighth goal tied him for second among NHL defensemen behind Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks.
“Honestly, I’m really happy to be able to contribute,” Wieger added. “It’s coming. Now I just have to get used to it a little bit every game. I’m just trying to be a threat on the outside.”
Just 43 seconds later, Sharangovic sent a centering pass from Jordan Oesterle past Vasilevskiy.
Sharangovic scored six goals in a career-best five-game scoring streak, bringing him to a team-best 11 goals this season.
“When I have a chance to take a shot, I try to take a shot and score. If I take three or four shots in a game, maybe one will go on goal,” the soft-spoken Sharangovic said. Ta.
Tampa Bay finally solved Vladar at 4:10 of the third period when Kucherov first got on the puck along the end boards and drifted a pass to the uncovered point in front of him for his 14th point. .
Ninety seconds later, Stamkos scored his 15th goal to make it 3-2.
Zary scored a goal at 11:42 with a brilliant individual skill, ending the comeback. He picked up the puck inside his own blue line, slid down his left wing and fired a shot from a sharp angle past Wasilewski despite being covered from head to toe by Brandon Hagel.
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“We’re not a bad team when we’re executing, but we’re in trouble when we get sloppy on our own end. The team takes over,” Point said. “Other teams have skilled players. You give them time and space and make them pay if they make turnovers, and that’s what happened tonight.”
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