5 Things - Flames vs. Capitals

1. Awooooo!

Don’t just Clap for the Wolfman.

Sing it!

On Saturday, the Flames up-and-comer had his finest hour at the NHL level, backstopping the locals to a 5-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens thanks to a career-high 36 saves.

Best of all?

The offence came to play, too, with Mikael Backlund scoring two, including a milestone marker, while supplying the impeccable two-way play fans have grown accustomed to in his 975 games with the franchise.

The skipper added a helper, while MacKenzie Weegar (3A), Nazem Kadri (1G, 1A) and Jonathan Huberdeau (2) had multi-point efforts, and four others had singles.

But the night, truly, belonged to Wolf, with the 22-year-old holding the fort in a game the Flames were widely out-chanced in.

“I’m just trying to take advantage of every opportunity I get right now, and two wins in a row is pretty crucial for our group,” said Wolf, was recalled to the big club with an injury to Jacob Markstrom, and now has delivered back-to-back wins for the first time on the grand stage. “I think every time you get to play more minutes, you feel more and more comfortable. I saw a lot of rubber tonight, so it got me into the game pretty quick.

“And we put up five, so it makes my life pretty easy back there.”

The Habs outshot the Flames 15-9 and 38-28, overall, while outchancing the Flames 2-to-1 (34-17) at 5-on-5 and finishing with a 13-8 edge in high-danger chances.

Among them, a pair of absolute showstoppers featuring the lunging acrobatics the reigning AHL Goaltender of the Year has made habit of, leaving Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki looking skyward.

Wolf has now stopped 64 of 67 shots in his last two starts, giving him a .955 save percentage and a 1.50 goals-against average in that span.

Only Andrei Vasilevskiy has more saves (72) since March 14.

Backlund the scored the 199th and 200th goals of his career before Martin Pospisil pushed it to 3-0 before the eight-minute mark of the second. Caufield and David Savard then responded for the Habs late, setting up a crucial, third-period sprint.

And from there, the Flames took over.

A powerplay goal from Kadri (the Flames’ second PPG of the evening) restore the multi-goal cushion early in the third, before Daniil Miromanov smacked home a loose puck at the side of the net to score his second goal as a Flame.

With two straight victories, the Flames enter Monday’s action eight points back of a wild-card spot.

“We’re a lot more excited today than we were after that road trip and the Colorado game,” Backlund said. “We've played two good games (since a three-game losing streak). Now, we’re taking it day-by-day and trying to focus on the next game and see where it takes us.”

2. Know Your Enemy

A week ago, the Caps were three points back of the final playoff spot.

Two weeks ago? Seven.

Today, after posting back-to-back wins including a thriller on Saturday in Vancouver, Spencer Carbery's crew is only one point out, with a game at hand.

“You look at these games, they’re meaningful hockey, playoff-type hockey for us,” said Tom Wilson, who opened the scoring for the Caps at 6:01 of the second period, knotting the game at one. “It’s great experience for everyone in the room. We’re rallying together, we’re playing well, we’re playing for each other and that’s what it’s all about this time of the year. If we keep playing like that, we’ll give ourselves a good chance.”

Alex Ovechkin scored the decider only 1:53 after Wilson, while Charlie Lindgren made 21 saves for the Caps, who began this five-game trip with back-to-back Ls. 

Ovechkin’s tally was the 841st of his career and now trails Wayne Gretzky by only 53 for the all-time goal-scoring record. 

Forward T.J. Oshie was a game-time decision, but did play – marking the 1,000th game of his NHL career. 

Oshie didn’t officially factor in the scoring, but made a crucial play on the winning strike, absorbing a hit along the boards while retaining possession, before spotting Alexander Alexeyev with a pretty pass into the high slot. Alexeyev hit Connor McMichael with a backdoor dish, before it was one-touched across the grain for Ovechkin for an easy tap-in.

Oshie spent the first seven years of his career with the St. Louis Blues, before being traded to Washington in the summer of 2015. He won the Stanley Cup with the Caps in 2018 and has 689 points (301G, 388A) in his 1,000 games.

“It was a rollercoaster today for sure with a little scare this morning,” Oshie told reporters after the game. “It was truly a game-time decision up to the end of warmups. Obviously, it's a special night and you want to play and not make all the congratulations kind of for nothing and postpone it. But I also didn't want to make the team shorthanded, so that would be the worst thing if I started and couldn’t finish. Once I finally was ready and knew I was ready, it was kind of go time.”

3. Quotable

Head Coach Ryan Huska on the leadership group – specifically, Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman – helping steer the ship and getting rewarded, themselves, in the process:

“It means to me that they're takin g it seriously and they're taking it to heart. They're really proud guys and they want to do the job to the best of their ability, and I think they're seeing that what they're doing is working; I think they're doing a great job of bringing the group together, and they should be proud of the effort that they put in.”

On A.J. Greer returning to the lineup on Saturday, after missing 18 games with a lower-body injury:

“He was committed to coming back early, which he did. He put a lot of time and a lot of effort into it. Some of those things those guys do when they're fighting to come back from injury, you've got to give them a lot of credit because they're oftentimes by themselves, with just the strength coach, and they have to go on the ice with just the skills guys. It can be a mental challenge for guys but I think he handled himself really well and he put himself in a position to be ready to play - and ahead of schedule, which is great for us.”

4. Fast Facts

We Like Mik(ael)

In recording his 200th career goal on Saturday, Backlund became the 11th player in franchise history to reach the milestone and just the second Swedish-born skater in Flames history to do it, alongside Kent Nilsson (229). The captain also registered his second two-goal effort of the season (Nov. 4 at SEA) and has now tallied 21 such efforts in his career.

“It feels special scoring 200 goals, for sure, in this league," Backlund said. “I put in a lot of work in my life to get to the NHL, and to be able to score 200 goals is special. It took longer ... I got close there in early January, scoring 196 or 197 or something like that, and it seemed to take forever to get to 200. It feels really good to get it. It's special to get all the goals here in Calgary, too. Some good company here in the organization's history."

Miro, Miro On The Wall

With his goal on Saturday, Daniil Miromanov become the fifth defenceman in franchise history to score two goals within his first five games with the team, and the first to do so since Phil Housley in 1995. … The Flames have now gotten 41 goals from the blueline this year, which is the third-most in the league behind the Colorado Avalanche (54) and the Montreal Canadiens (42).

5. Players To Watch

Flames - Jonathan Huberdeau

Huberdeau recorded a pair of apples on Saturday to register his ninth multi-assist game of the season, along with his 13th multi-point effort of the campaign. Twenty-one of his 34 helpers are primary assists, which is tied with Nazem Kadri for the most on the team.

Huberdeau has 28 points (5G, 23A) in 31 games since New Year’s Eve, with nine of those coming on the powerplay – again, tied with Kadri for the clubhouse lead.

Capitals - Dylan Strome

The third-overall pick in the 2015 Draft has truly found a home in Washington.

Strome, 27, leads the Capitals in scoring with 51 points (22G, 29A) and is on pace to match his age in the goal column, which would beat his previous career high of 23, set last year.

The Mississauga native has an impressive 17 multi-point efforts this this year, second only to Ovechkin (2), and he enters tonight’s game on a heater, recording 16 points (2G, 14A) in his last 13 games.