Flames 4, Blue Jackets 3 (OT)
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Alex Tanguay's overtime game-winner for the Calgary Flames ended a back-and-forth battle with Columbus, and it meant a rare win in Nationwide Arena for the Flames.
Tanguay scored his fourth goal of the season only 1:07 into overtime, giving the Flames a 4-3 victory.
The Flames had leads of 1-0 and 3-2, but couldn't hold them.
Told that the Blue Jackets had a 15-4-3 record all-time against the Flames in Nationwide Arena earlier in the day, Flames coach Bob Hartley joked: "Elvis is dead and Wayne Gretzky was traded, so nothing lasts forever, right?"
He was right.
Lee Stempniak, Roman Cervenka and Mikael Backlund also scored for the Flames, who won in Detroit on Tuesday and are 3-1-1 after a slow start.
Flames goaltender Leland Irving, making only his eighth NHL start, had 26 saves for only his second NHL win.
Cervenka, a 27-year-old playing only his fifth NHL game, scored his NHL goal.
Matt Calvert, Mark Letestu and Vinny Prospal scored for the Blue Jackets, who are just 1-3-0 at the start of their six-game homestand.
Calgary took a 1-0 lead at 4:19 of the first. Cervenka, an undrafted free agent signed by the Flames in May, redirected a Dennis Wideman slap shot, ramping it up and over Bobrovsky's left shoulder.
The Blue Jackets pulled even while Cervenka's goal was still be announced in the arena.
Matt Calvert, who hadn't scored an NHL goal since late in the 2010-11 season, found space with the puck low in the left circle and fired a wrister between Irvin's pads.
The Jackets took a 2-1 lead at 9:37 of the first, thanks to a nifty bit of passing on the power play.
Derick Brassard settled a Jack Johnson pass with his right skate, then faked a slap shot and sent a cross-zone pass to Letestu, who was set up on the left faceoff dot.
Letestu, who now shares the Blue Jackets' lead with four goals, one-timed the pass just inside the near post before Irving could recover.
The Blue Jackets did not sustain pressure after that on Irving, and he seemed to settle into a comfort zone.
The second period was all Calgary. The Flames pulled to 2-2 at 13:06 of second, when Backlund pounced on a rebound off a T.J. Brodie shot and fired it past Bobrovsky.
Calgary continued the momentum into the third, taking a 3-2 lead at 8:33. As a power play ticked down to its final seconds, Stempniak loosed a slap shot from atop the right circle to put the Flames on top.
The Blue Jackets had only one shot on goal in the third period, but they sprung to life -- briefly -- after Stempniak's goal.
Prospal took a drop pass from Letestu on a 2-on-1 and fired a wrister clean through Irving to tie the game at 3.
Bobrovsky stopped 26 of 30 shots.
NOTES: Blue Jackets center Brandon Dubinsky was handed a $10,000 fine -- but no suspension -- by the NHL for his hit on Los Angeles Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi on Tuesday. "I've played 400 games and had 1,000 hits in my career, and this is the first time I've ever been through a supplement discipline hearing with the league," Dubinsky told The Columbus Dispatch. "I'm not a dirty player." ... Flames forward Mike Cammalleri, out with an undisclosed injury, was deemed a "game-time decision" by Calgary coach Bob Hartley but did not dress. ... The Blue Jackets activated defenseman Nikita Nikitin off injured reserve. He missed three games with a lower-body injury.
