Coleman scores twice, Flames ease past Rangers to end 8-game slide

CALGARY -- Blake Coleman scored two goals for the Calgary Flames, who ended an eight-game losing streak with a 5-1 win against the New York Rangers at Scotiabank Saddledome on Sunday.

Nazem Kadri had a goal and an assist, Kevin Bahl and Yegor Sharangovich also scored, and Mikael Backlund had two assists for the Flames (2-7-1), who had been outscored 31-12 during the streak (0-7-1). Dustin Wolf made 30 saves.

“The last few games we thought we honestly played pretty well, just couldn’t finish and (on) special teams we were pretty undisciplined," Coleman said. "We corrected those things today and got a couple bounces, and it feels good to get a win. It doesn’t mean much if you can’t build on it, but it feels good today.”

Noah Laba scored his first NHL goal for the Rangers (3-5-2), who have lost three in a row (0-2-1) and six of their past seven (1-4-2). Igor Shesterkin made 25 saves.

“We’re not at our best right now and we’ve got to find a way to dig ourselves out of it,” New York coach Mike Sullivan said. “It starts with effort and just attention to detail on the defensive side. For a lot of this year, we had done a real good job at controlling the defensive side of the puck and limiting not only quality of chances, but quantity of chances. Tonight, the types of mistakes we made, they were egregious. They were really hard to recover from and we gave them some pretty good looks as a result.”

Kadri gave the Flames a 1-0 lead at 1:42 of the first period. He lost control of the puck while trying to make a move around Mika Zibanejad, but it went right to Jonathan Huberdeau, who dropped a pass back to Kadri for a snap shot from the right circle.

“They were more ready to play than we were, and I don’t want to make this bigger than it is, but in the last couple of games we were getting outplayed in the first period of the game,” Rangers captain J.T. Miller said. “There’s no excuses to come out flat. It [stinks]. This is not fun right now and we need to correct the starts.”

Bahl made it 2-0 at 9:21 of the first with a wrist shot from the high slot that went glove side on Shesterkin, who was screened by teammate Alexis Lafreniere.

Laba, who was playing in his 10th NHL game, cut it to 2-1 just 10 seconds later. He took a pass at the blue line and skated hard to the net down the left wing before lifting a shot over Wolf’s left pad.

“He scores a nice goal,” Sullivan said. “I thought he had one of his better games for us just as far as using his skating and his speed to his advantage. I think that’s one of the strengths to his game is his skating and his speed.”

Wolf responded by stopping a pair of breakaways in the second period to preserve the one-goal lead. He first made a blocker save on Laba at 1:41 before doing the splits in order to turn aside a shot by Zibanejad with his left pad at 9:48.

“He makes some pretty momentum-shifting saves and saves that get the crowd out of their seats, and it’s fun to watch him play,” Coleman said. “Hopefully this is the first of many games we give him some run support.”

Sharangovich then scored his first goal of the season to put the Flames up 3-1 at 12:28 of the second. Connor Zary made a move around Braden Schneider and skated down the right wing before sending a backhand pass to Sharangovich, whose one-timer from the low slot hit off Shesterkin’s glove before trickling into the net.

“I was happy to see Sharangovich score tonight,” said Calgary coach Ryan Huska, who made Sharangovich a healthy scratch for two games before inserting him back into the lineup for Calgary’s 5-3 loss at the Winnipeg Jets on Friday. “I just think the urgency to be around the puck and to have the puck is quite a bit different than we saw in the couple of games prior to him being taken out of the lineup.”

Coleman extended the lead to 4-1 at 6:42 of the third period, tapping in a return pass from Backlund on a short-handed 2-on-1 rush.

Coleman scored again to make it 5-1 at 14:27 when his shot deflected off Lafreniere and fluttered past Shesterkin.

“We just haven’t been able to find a balance, and we got some bounces tonight,” Wolf said. “Putting up five goals is awesome, and we were sound defensively. That’s how we have to play.”

NOTES: Coleman’s short-handed goal was the 19th of his NHL career, which is the fifth-most among active players, behind Brad Marchand (36), Jordan Staal (21), Jean-Gabriel Pageau (21) and Sebastian Aho (20). ... With Calgary’s victory, only three NHL teams remain without a win at home: the Rangers (0-4-1), Los Angeles Kings (0-2-1) and San Jose Sharks (0-2-2).