It has been a smooth transition in Calgary for Nazem Kadri.
Kadri remained red-hot on Tuesday, extending his NHL points streak to six games with two goals and an assist to lead the Flames to a 4-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
After helping the Colorado Avalanche win the Stanley Cup, Kadri hasn’t missed a beat since signing a seven-year, $49-million deal with Calgary.
His points streak is the fourth longest to begin a Flames career. Mel Bridgman (1980-81), holds the record at eight games while Phil Housley (1994-95) and Sergei Makarov (1989-90) had seven-game sprees.
“He’s been playing well,” Jonathan Huberdeau said about his fellow newcomer. “Such a good player, he works hard and it’s been working for him. He creates a lot of things on the ice defensively, offensively, and he’s gonna keep going, too.”
WATCH | Kadri’s 3-point night power Flames in win against Penguins:
Calgary’s Nazem Kadri scores twice to lead the way as the Flames defeat Pittsburgh 4-1.
Huberdeau, with his first as a Flame, and Michael Stone also scored for Calgary (5-1-0).
Evgeni Malkin had the lone goal for Pittsburgh (4-2-1), which lost both ends of its back-to-back set in Alberta in regulation after starting the season with points in their first five games.
Sidney Crosby, who entered the night with 11 points in six games and was seeking his 900th career assist, was kept off the scoresheet.
It was all Calgary in the first period as the Flames built a 2-0 lead and held a 20-2 edge in shots before the besieged Penguins pushed back in the final two minutes.
Pittsburgh goaltender Casey DeSmith was spectacular in keeping the game scoreless until Calgary’s 15th shot beat him. Andrew Mangiapane’s centring pass was neatly redirected in by Kadri at 14:11.
Kadri added his second of the game less than four minutes later picking the top corner for an unassisted goal.
“A good start, that’s probably what did it for us,” Kadri said. “We came out hot. I’d like to see us have a better second period, but for the most part, we stayed with it, had a great start and that’s definitely a positive sign.”
Huberdeau made it 3-0 early in the second on the power play, but after that, Pittsburgh tilted the ice in their favour beginning with Malkin’s power-play goal at 4:32.
The Penguins outshot Calgary 20-4 in the second period, but thanks to Jacob Markstrom’s stellar work in net, their deficit grew to three goals with Stone’s slapshot at 11:20 making it 4-1.
Markstrom finished with 32 stops to improve to 4-0-0. DeSmith had 31 saves to fall to 0-1-1.
Flames thrive in middle frame
“Big second period,” said Flames coach Darryl Sutter, when asked about his goaltender. “We’d miss a scoring chance, they come down with a scoring chance. He probably kept it at a two-goal game.”
It was an usually quiet night offensively for Pittsburgh, who recorded six goals in four of their first six games.
“When you’re scoring six a night, you get in that mode of ‘we can do it every night’ and we have a team that could do it every night,” said Penguins forward Jeff Carter.
“But I think at the start of the year we were scoring six goals because we were playing the right way. We’re checking and creating our opportunities from our own end out, really, and grinding teams down when we get into the offensive end.”