BENNETT ON A ROLL

Amidst the celebratory tumult over his dramatic go-ahead strike, an ecstatic Sam Bennett naturally had the headlights turned to high-beam.
That was a Lotto 649 jackpot win grin. A flash of enamel bright enough, Pepsodent-gleaming enough, to light up Times Square on any given New Year's Eve.

"I felt a lot of emotion there,'' acknowledged Bennett, savouring his vital, late game-winning goal against the Vancouver Canucks, swinging away from a back checking Sam Gagner, on Saturday night.
"It's a big goal. I was able to walk off the wall and get a backhand away. After a tough start it's definitely nice to get one like that.
"Obviously I want to help our team win by producing. That's part of my game."
More and more, Bennett is looking more of the player his boss, Glen Gulutzan, had predicted heading into the season.
The Flames, too, are beginning to find a foothold again, the 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks providing back-to-back Ws and points in the most recent three games.
A stubborn third-period push erased a 2-1 deficit, Matthew Tkachuk's whippet-like, under-the-crossbar backhander, his first goal in a month, drawing them level at 11:34 of the third period.
Bennett followed up that up with his third goal and eighth point over the past half-dozen fixtures just 1:10 away from overtime, on another backhander, reward for a claustrophobic shift that had the Canucks hemmed in their own for a good 30 seconds that seemed an eternity.
"I think I mentioned to you guys, for me (for Bennett) it changed probably 12, 13 games ago,'' said Gulutzan. "I don't know many games ago it was now … but he had his best 10-game segment since February of his first year.
"So you could see that he's trending in the right direction as far as creating chances. Doing a heckuva job, it just wasn't going in.

"Then all of a sudden now he's stayed on that same pace and has, what?, seven, eight points in the last … I don't know what exactly it is.
"That's a real good sign for our hockey club and a great sign for Benny.
"He's been working away. I'm really happy for him. Hopefully this gives him a little more traction."
Tkachuk, clipping a flying puck out of the air a foot or so outside the Calgary blue-line then calmly firing it into an empty net from distance at 19:36 to put any doubt to rest.
"It's funny,'' mused Gulutzan afterwards, "but both those guys" - Tkachuk and Bennett - "I wasn't happy with after the first and let them know.
"Well, they showed me in the third."
The result, given the venue, circumstances and opponent, could not have been more timely. It evened the Flames' decidedly uneven home account at 8-8. Boosted them two points above the Canucks in the Pacific Division standings. Arrived on the heels of a back-to-back eastern odyssey to Toronto and Montreal that could've left them a trifle bagged.
And was earned through dogged persistence.
"Two games in a row we were down by a goal going into the third,'' said Gulutzan. "We talked about that between periods. The common theme in that locker-room is just sticking with it. No matter who scores first or what happens.
"I thought we did a good job of that. I thought Vancouver did a good job of limiting chances, too. They clogged up the neutral zone with four guys at the blue.
"But we stuck with it. It was a 12-6-, 13-6-chance game in our favour. There wasn't a lot of real estate out there.
"We're four (games) in six nights with that trip out east. So I thought the theme was fitting - we stuck with it, stuck with it and finally we got rewarded."
On a night he marked his 500th NHL appearance, goaltender Mike Smith also applauded his group's pluck.
"You've not going to win every game crisp, when everything's on the tape, everything's going in their net and everything's staying out of yours,'' Smith said.
"It just doesn't happen that way.
"But there's more character built in games like this one. We had a hill to climb but we climbed it.
"We stuck with it right until the end, then Benny scored a big goal and we hunker down and don't let them get the next one.
"A big two points, a big result, for us."