FLAMES FALL TO SABRES

The Flames dropped their first game of the season Thursday night, falling 6-3 to the Buffalo Sabres at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
They are now 3-1 on the season.

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Calgary struck first in the tilt but the visitors rattled off three straight after that in the first period and wouldn't relinquish the lead.
Andrew Mangiapane scored his second of the season, while Trevor Lewis and Nikita Zadorov had singles.
Jacob Markstrom played the first period, making nine saves on 12 shots. Dan Vladar - who earlier in the day singed a two-year extension (click to read:
'It's A Dream Come True
) - played the final 40 minutes, finishing with 17 stops.
The Flames outshot the Sabres 43-32 on the night.
Noah Hanifin didn't play in the tilt, with Connor Mackey drawing into the lineup.
Mangiapane opened the scoring with a beauty 4:21 into the contest.
No. 88 took a feed from Nazem Kadri as he cut through the slot, kicking it up to his stick and snapping it high farside over Eric Comrie's glove.
Earlier on the same possession, Mangiapane tipped a long-distance pass/shot from Michael Stone, but Comrie was able to slam the pads together to keep it from going five-hole.

Dylan Cozens tied it up with his first of the year at 6:43, getting the puck all alone out front and trying to slip a backhand under Markstrom, the Flames 'tender stopping it but as he lay face down on the ice, he exposed the puck in the blue paint when he moved his legs and Cozens swept it across the line.
The Sabres went up 2-1 at 10:49 when Rasmus Dahlin skated in from the blueline as the trailer on a rush, firing it over the blocker of a screened Markstrom. The Buffalo blueliner has now scored in the opening four games of the season, becoming the first NHL blueliner to accomplish that feat.
Casey Mittelstadt added to the Buffalo run with a backhander on a shorthanded breakaway at 13:10.
Jonathan Huberdeau, Dillon Dube and Mikael Backlund had great chances in the final three minutes of the frame but couldn't find the twine.
Alex Tuch beat Vladar him shortside 46 seconds into the middle stanza to make 4-1.
Tage Thompson stepped into a howitzer of a one-timer on the powerplay with 13:06 to go in period and the refs called it a goal but after review, they overturned as it went off the post and out of harm's way.
Lewis made it a two-goal gap when he tallied with 1.6 seconds left in the second, grabbing the loose puck after Huberdeau lost the handle and putting into a yawning cage.

The ice hadn't completely dried from the intermission flood when Zadorov made it a one-goal game with a dandy just 1:09 into the third. He was a physical force all night with a team-high six hits, four of them sending opponents crashing to the ice.

The Flames rattled off the first seven shots of the period, Kadri nearly tying it up on the rebound of a Stone slapshot from the point but unable to squeeze it in from a near impossible angle.
Buffalo restored a two-goal cushion when Tuch scored on a powerplay at 5:41.
The Flames pulled the goalie with more than four minutes to go but took a penalty to go on the PK.
Tuch later got an empty-netter to finish off the hat-trick.

LUCIC HITS MILESTONE:

Milan Lucic skated in his 1,100th game Thursday night, reaching an impressive milestone that only 211 other NHLers have achieved.
"Feels like it wasn't too long ago, where we were celebrating 1000," he said after the morning skate.
"You think about it as a whole from 2007 to now, how fast it goes and all that type of stuff.
"What was I? 355 or three something in there when I hit a thousand and now that number shrinks to 211. You see when you climb up in games, how those numbers shrink and only a certain amount of players end up getting to that plateau.
"That's another thing that I guess is pretty cool and you're pretty grateful about."
Hear more of what the big man had to say about the big game prior to the tilt:

THEY SAID IT:

BY THE NUMBERS:

Shots: CGY 43 , BUF 32
Powerplay:CGY 0-1, BUF 1-5
Hits:CGY 29, BUF 11
Face-offs: CGY 44%, BUF 56%
\Scoring chances: CGY 32, BUF 31
\High-danger scoring chances:CGY 8, BUF 9
\According of Natural Stat Trick (5-on-5)*

THE LINEUP:

The trios and D pairs to start the tilt:
Forwards
Jonathan Huberdeau - Elias Lindholm - Tyler Toffoli
Dillon Dube - Mikael Backlund - Andrew Mangiapane
Blake Coleman - Mikael Backlund - Trevor Lewis
Milan Lucic - Kevin Rooney - Brett Ritchie
Pairings
MacKenzie Weegar - Christopher Tanev
Nikita Zadorov - Rasmus Andersson
Connor Mackey - Michael Stone
Goaltender
Jacob Markstrom- starter
Dan Vladar

UP NEXT:

The Flames continue their homestand when they host the Hurricanes on Saturday for a Hockey Night in Canada tilt at 8 p.m.