"I liked the effort. Not the result," Flames head coach Ryan Huska said post-game. "But the effort was there for us for, I felt, the full 60 minutes. We made three mistakes coming back into our own zone off the rush; we lost people. And then one, a turnover, but other than those mistakes, I liked a lot of what we did tonight.
"I thought we were competitive. All the lines were a part of that tonight."
The hosts carried a 2-0 lead into the first intermission, scoring goals 1:28 apart to break the ice.
While short-handed, the Canucks opened the scoring when defenceman Tyler Myers found space down the right wing before snapping a shot low to Markstrom’s blocker side.
Nils Hoglander extended the lead with 6:32 remaining in the stanza, converting on a cross-crease pass from linemate Elias Pettersson for his 24th goal of the campaign.
The Flames had chances to solve Demko, too, notably an Andrei Kuzmenko snapper that cranked off Demko’s post on a Calgary powerplay.
The Canuck keeper also turned aside a Nazem Kadri rush from the right wing, as well as a heavy one-timer from Rasmus Andersson at the buzzer.
Shots were 12-9 in favour of Vancouver after 20 minutes.
Dakota Joshua extended the Canucks lead on an odd-man rush 1:58 into period two with a snapshot from the right circle.
Calgary pressed, outshooting Vancouver 15-10 in the middle frame, but the Flames could not solve Demko.
They came closest on a chance from Martin Pospisil, who from the bottom of the left circle forced the Vancouver keeper into a lunging, stick-less right pad save with just over three-and-a-half minutes gone in the period. Kadri was also foiled late in the frame on a low slot feed from Huberdeau on Calgary’s second powerplay of the evening.
The Flames kept the pressure on Demko to start the third - coming inches away from getting on the scoresheet when Huberdeau whacked a puck through the Canucks net minder’s legs, only for Vancouver captain Quinn Hughes to pull the loose disc off the goalline.
At the other end, Markstrom denied Joshua on a partial break, then parried aside Hoglander’s rebound effort to keep the score static.
Pachal finally got the visitors on the board with just over nine minutes left in the contest, snapping a long-range shot through traffic over Demko’s left shoulder for his first goal since arriving in Calgary in February.
