Edmonton Oilers' Viktor Arvidsson (33) swats at the puck in front of Calgary Flames' goalie Daniel Vladar (80) during first period NHL pre-season hockey action in Calgary, Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
CALGARY – Connor Zary scored twice and added an assist Monday night to lead the Calgary Flames to a 6-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in part of a split-squad NHL pre-season doubleheader.
Yegor Sharangovich with a pair of goals, Nazem Kadri and Daniil Miromanov, also scored for Calgary.
Mike Hoffman scored for Edmonton.
Dan Vladar got the start for Calgary and stopped 18 of 19 shots before giving way to Waltteri Ignatjew for the third period.
The Oilers’ Olivier Rodrigue stopped 20 of 25 shots in his 40 minutes of action before he was replaced by Nathaniel Day.
Zary, who turns 23 on Wednesday, is looking to build on a solid rookie season in which he scored 14 goals and had 34 points in 63 games. Zary finished eighth in voting for the Calder Memorial Trophy, which goes to the NHL’s best rookie.
Calgary’s first-round pick in 2020, Zary has opened training camp playing left wing on a line with captain Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman.
Backlund and Coleman have played together for years, but this is Zary’s first look alongside the two veterans and the signs of chemistry were evident in the second period when the Flames scored four times to blow open a game that was tied 1-1 after 20 minutes.
Giving the home side the lead for good was Zary at 5:14 of the second period when he went to the net and deflected Backlund’s shot past Rodrigue.
After Zary displayed a goal-scorer’s hands firing a shot just inside the goalpost on a perfectly executed drag-and-shoot move on the power play at 9:12, his line went back to work.
At 14:20, Backlund set up Zary again on a cross-ice pass and while Rodrigue got across to make a terrific pad stop, Miromanov was right there to shovel in the rebound.
Calgary’s final two goals came from Sharangovich, who led the club with 31 goals last season.
Playing on a line with Kadri and Andrei Kuzmenko, Sharangovich one-timed a Kadri setup to wrap-up the second period scoring barrage.
He then added a short-handed goal 4:15 into the third.
All the scoring in the first period scoring came 47 seconds apart.
Hoffman opened the scoring on a power play when he finished off a give-and-go with Ben Gleason by snapping a shot past Vladar at 7:55.
Calgary answered back when Kadri buried a lively MacKenzie Weegar rebound off the end boards before Rodrigue could slide across.
VYING FOR A SPOT
The 34-year-old Hoffman is in Edmonton’s camp on a professional tryout. On Monday he played alongside Lane Pederson and Matt Savoie. Hoffman has logged 745 career NHL games with five teams after starting his career with the Ottawa Senators. He played last season in San Jose where he scored 10 goals and had 23 points in 66 games.
SOLID STOPS
With Jacob Markstrom traded to New Jersey, Vladar is battling Dustin Wolf for the Flames No. 1 goaltender job. His solid game included a stop on Viktor Arvidsson on a second-period breakaway.
UP NEXT
Oilers: Visit the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday.
Flames: Visit the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2024.
