"I thought we showed a lot of resolve," said Head Coach Darryl Sutter. "They score that empty net goal in the first minute of the game and, quite honest, I thought we had a really good first period and that's what I told them after the first: 'It's a winnable game for us.'
"And we damn near did.
"We hung around tonight. We're not going to go away easy. If they thought we were going to beat us easy, that wasn't the case."
The Flames got a massive boost with the return of their top shutdown defender, Chris Tanev, who missed the past four games with an undisclosed injury. Tanev picked up an assist and one blocked shot in 19:24 of ice time.
With Tanev inserted, the Flames elected to keep Michael Stone in on the blueline, and roll with seven defencemen and 11 forwards.
Brett Ritchie was the odd-man out.
Tanev was labouring at points in the first period, but settled it nicely after that.
"What can you say? There's a reason why he's the leader on our team and I think he showed that tonight," Andersson said. "It's never easy battling injuries, especially with what he's battling, too. He showed a lot of heart tonight and all the guys on the bench saw that and we treid to play for him.
"He's a warrior and an unbelievable teammate."
The Oilers opened the scoring only 21 seconds into the game, when Markstrom mishandled the puck behind the net. Markstrom was trying to play it up the wall, but 'heeled' it off his goal stick, allowing Ryan Nugent-Hopkins to swoop in and fire it into the empty cage, despite the goalie's best effort to dive back and block it.
Markstrom, though, redeemed himself with a huge save off Darnell Nurse moments later, thwarting the blueliner's point-blank chance after Leon Draisaitl spotted him with an east-west feed at the hashmarks.
The Flames had a great chance to even the score shortly thereafter when Matthew Tkachuk hit Johnny Gaudreau at the right circle, but No. 13's laser-beam was emphatically gloved down by Smith.
The Oilers took a 2-0 lead with a powerplay goal at 9:53. With Tyler Toffoli serving a tripping penalty, Connor McDavid feathered a shot into the goalmouth. Markstrom made the initial stop amid the chaos, but Zack Hyman kept it and swept it across the goal line.
The Flames pushed back - hard - and came close on numerous occasions late in the period, but couldn't hit paydirt.
The territorial edge was a good sign for a team that needed something good to go their way, but that 'something' never arrived.
Evander Kane made it a 3-0 game 18:54 as he capitalized on a turnover at the offensive blueline and ripped a shot that deflected off the stick of Nikita Zadorov, beating Markstrom over the blocker for his 11th of the postseason.
The Flames had more than three-quarters of the shot attempts (33-10) and nearly twice the number of scoring chances (13-7) in the period at 5-on-5, but that, certainly, is of little consolation.
But all it takes is one shot to get back in the game.
Lindholm got the Flames on the board with a powerplay marker at 9:04. With all kinds of time and space to walk in off the right circle, he caught Smith deep in his net and cheating for the pass, opening up the blocker-side corner for an absolutely filthy snipe.
Thirty-six seconds later, Backlund brought the Flames within one with a dirty dangle of his own, speeding down the right side and burning Duncan Keith in the process, before slipping a shot through Smith for his fourth of the playoffs.
