Flames lose to Predators in first game without Giordano

CALGARY -- The Calgary Flames lost their first game without captain Mark Giordano when Mikael Granlund and Kyle Turris each had a goal and an assist for the Nashville Predators in a 3-2 win at Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday.

The defenseman is week to week after he sustained a hamstring injury while attempting to take a shot in the second period of a 3-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday.
Roman Josi had two assists, and Juuse Saros made 37 saves for the Predators (26-20-7), who have won five of seven and sit one point back of Calgary for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference with two games in hand.
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"There's a lot of teams that are in the same position," Granlund said. "Everybody's grinding for every single point. The games are going to be tight games, one-goal games. We have to find ways to get out of those games with points and we've been doing that lately. There's still a lot of season left. We have to keep grinding and battling and keep putting up those points."
Sam Bennett and Rasmus Andersson scored, and Cam Talbot made 32 saves for the Flames (27-22-6), who have lost three in a row and are 2-5-1 in their past eight games.
"This needs to be a desperate group right now," Talbot said. "You look at the standings and teams are closing quickly. We needed this one tonight."
Bennett redirected Travis Hamonic's cross-crease pass 33 seconds into the first period to put the Flames up 1-0. The goal was Bennett's first in 13 games.

Dante Fabbro tied it 1-1 at 1:49 with a shot from the high slot, and Turris made it 2-1 at 11:43.
"It is crunch time right now," Calgary forward Matthew Tkachuk said. "We've just got to get to our game and get to it early. There's no excuse why after we make it 1-0, it's 2-1 after the end of the first period. We've got to do a better job of playing with the lead there."
Granlund extended the lead to 3-1 on Josi's rebound on the power play at 9:06 of the second period. Granlund has six goals in 12 games since coach John Hynes was hired Jan. 7.
"When pucks are going in, that's the confidence that comes there, but at the same time I've been out there a lot, getting a lot of minutes and chances," Granlund said. "You just try to take advantage of that. It's been nice to play."

Andersson scored on a wrist shot through traffic at 11:06 to cut the lead to 3-2.
Saros made 12 saves in the third period, including nine in the final 7:53.
"They had a lot of chances," Josi said. "Especially in the second and third I thought they had some really good looks, and he was great. He definitely won that game for us."

They said it

"We're coming around and getting a little bit more consistency to our game. Mentally, our attention to detail, our pushback in certain components of the game is something we've really addressed. I still think there's so much more that we have in this group. It's nice we've been able to find ways to win. I think it builds belief and builds confidence. We're doing enough things to win games, but I still think the exciting thing as a coach is there's more here." -- Predators coach John Hynes
"Right now, if we're having issues with how we need to play, if we don't understand how we need to play, then we're in trouble. You look at good teams at this time of year, the veteran players and the team drives itself in a lot of cases. Right now, at the end of the day, we have to be better, we have to be more desperate, we have to compete harder and we have to understand what our identity is, and we have to play with it." -- Flames coach Geoff Ward

Need to know

Josi became the second Switzerland-born player in NHL history to score 400 points, joining Mark Streit (434). … Turris has six points (one goal, five assists) in his past seven games. … Saros is 3-0-0 with a 2.33 goals-against average and .934 save percentage in his past three starts. … Flames forward Elias Lindholm extended his point streak to five games (two goals, three assists). … Flames defenseman Brandon Davidson, who was recalled from Stockton of the American Hockey League on Thursday, blocked five shots in 10:42 in his first game since Nov. 23.

What's next

Predators:At the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SN360, CITY, SNW, FS-TN, NHL.TV)
Flames:At the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday (10 p.m. ET; CBC, SN, SN360, SN1, CITY, NHL.TV)