Flames score early, often to double-up Golden Knights

Now Playing

Link copied!

Mikael Backlund scored two goals for the second straight game and Connor Zary and MacKenzie Weegar each had three assists to lead the host Calgary Flames to a 6-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday night.

It was the 23rd multi-goal game of Backlund's career. Joel Farabee scored a short-handed goal, and Adam Klapka, Ryan Lomberg and Jonathan Huberdeau also scored goals. Devin Cooley made 34 saves for Calgary, which improved to 7-1-1 in its last nine home games.

Weegar notched his first three-point game of the season and Zary had the first three-point game of his career.

Mark Stone had a goal and an assist, Mitch Marner had two assists and Reilly Smith and Kaedan Korczak also scored goals for Vegas, which had an eight-game point streak snapped. Akira Schmid stopped 20 of 25 shots.

Backlund gave Calgary a 1-0 lead at the 3:54 mark of the first period when he chipped in a rebound of a Blake Coleman shot at the end of an odd-man rush. Klapka made it 2-0 midway through the period with a deflection of Yan Kuznetsov's point shot.

Vegas cut the lead to 2-1 on a breakaway goal by Smith, who took a stretch pass from Stone and put in a backhand shot on Cooley's glove side. Lomberg put Calgary back up by two goals near the end of the period when he finished a 2-on-0 break with a wrist shot past Schmid's blocker side.

The Flames extended the lead to 5-1 in the second period on goals by Backlund, who drove in a rebound of his own five-hole shot, and Farabee's short-handed goal, a wrist shot from the slot past Schmid's glove side.

Vegas, which won the first two meetings between the two teams early October by a combined score of 10-3, cut the lead to 5-2 near the end of the second period on Korczak's snap shot from the right circle into the far left corner.

Stone made it 5-3 with 3:57 remaining with a power-play goal, batting in a rebound of a Noah Hanifin shot.

Vegas pulled Schmid for an extra attacker with two minutes to go, and Huberdeau sealed the win with an empty-netter with 45 seconds remaining.

--Field Level Media