'Be Difference Makers'

ANAHEIM - Preventing goals and even scoring them.

The Flames penalty-killing unit has done just that this season, tied for first in the league alongside St. Louis and Minnesota with eight shorthanded markers, and killing at an 82% rate – good for 11th.

Just in the month of December alone they’ve lit the lamp a league high five times, with Blake Coleman contributing three.

Pretty impressive work.

So what’s been the secret to the success?

Confidence and chemistry within the four-man units.

“When you look at Mikael (Backlund) and Elias (Lindholm), they’ve killed together for three years now,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. “Sometimes they don’t need to communicate verbally to know where the other is going to be on the ice. They have a really good understanding of each other.

“I think that’s a really important thing for a penalty-kill. There are some underlying things that we have to improve with our penalty kill but they are a group that feels when they get an opportunity to kill they can go out and be difference makers and that’s a really good thing to have.”

Of course, it’s better to stay out of the box as much as possible but with the way the unit has been rolling, it’s given a boost of confidence to the bench and switch momentum in the game in a blink.

Look no further than the captain’s tally Monday night against the Florida Panthers for proof.

Tied game, late kill in the third period, big shorthanded goal that held up as the game-winner.

“I think we can be even better,” Backlund said. “It’s great that we are scoring goals and helping the team that way but I think we can do a better job even coming out of games at 100%.

“We’ve been more aggressive lately and knowing when one player pressures, everyone else is pressuring. We’ve been better as a unit that way.”

With this quick jaunt out to California, the unit will be put up to the challenge once again tonight with the Ducks currently clicking at 22% with the man advantage, good for 13th in the league.

And, with both clubs riding a pair of win streaks headed into the battle and the Flames looking to close the gap on a wildcard spot, this one is a big one.

A match-up that very well could come down to who wins the special-teams battle.

"We want to make sure we’re continuing to build off some really good things that we’ve done,” Huska said on the outlook for tonight. “The way we want to come in and play today is kind of a reflection of a lot of the parts of our last few games.

“This is another game for us, you can put it that way, but it’s also got a little bit more importance because we do want to make sure we get back to that .500 level and we want to make sure we’re having a good effort here tonight."