Flames win 9th in row, another Brian Elliott shutout

WINNIPEG-- The Calgary Flames won their ninth straight game, 3-0 against the Winnipeg Jets at MTS Centre on Saturday.
Brian Elliott made 31 saves for his second straight shutout. He made 24 saves in a 5-0 win against the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday and has won seven in a row, nine of his past 10, and is 12-1-1 in his past 14 games.
"I think everybody is approaching it a game at a time and building those two points at a time," Elliott said. "We have to keep doing the same things. You can't sit back and look at the little run we've been on. You have to look forward to the next game."

WATCH: All Flames vs. Jets highlights
It is the longest winning streak for the Flames since they moved from Atlanta in 1980-81. The franchise record is 10 in a row, set from Oct. 14-Nov. 3, 1978.
Mikael Backlund, Michael Frolik and Alex Chiasson scored for Calgary (38-26-4), and Dougie Hamilton had three assists after being a game-time decision because of a lower-body injury.
"You know what, Dougie was in a lot of pain and there was a time there we were going to shut him down there in the third," Flames coach Glen Gulutzan said. "He did a really good job, ended up with three assists and was effective. I thought he did a great job."

Connor Hellebuyck made 26 saves for Winnipeg (30-33-6), which lost its third in a row and is nine points behind the St. Louis Blues for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference with 13 games remaining.
"Frustrating game," Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey said. "I think for us, we had our game right in spurts, but not the full game, and it's disappointing in a big game like that not to have it be right for the full game."
Backlund scored to make it 1-0 on the power play at 14:06 of the first period. He made a cross-ice pass to Hamilton, whose shot hit the inside of the right post behind Hellebuyck and came back out the left side to Backlund for his 21st.
Frolik made it 2-0 on the power play at 12:09 of the second period. Hamilton's shot was saved by Hellebuyck, but the rebound was picked out by Matthew Tkachuk, who slid the puck out front to Frolik for his 15th.
Chiasson extended the lead to 3-0 at 3:24 of the third period. Sean Monahan moved the puck to Chiasson, and his wrist shot beat Hellebuyck on his blocker side.
"We want to keep climbing the standings," Flames forward Micheal Ferland said. "We're having a lot of fun. We're playing the right way and getting rewarded."

Goal of the game

Backlund helped set up his goal in the first period. After picking out Hamilton for an open shot, Backlund got the puck back on his stick and backhanded it off a rebound.

Save of the game

Trouba took the puck to the net and tried to wait out Elliott with a backhand, but Elliott sprawled across his crease to keep it 1-0 early in the second period.

Highlight of the game

Hellebuyck got his glove out to stop Backlund in front after defenseman Deryk Engelland set up a scoring opportunity for the Flames from behind the net in the third period.

Unsung performance of the game

Engelland had two shots, three blocks and was plus-1 in 23:59, including 4:19 shorthanded.

They said it

"Just got stepped on or cut or whatever. I knew there was something wrong right away. Just got lucky, really lucky, wore the right socks. It didn't touch my [Achilles] tendon. I think they said it was as close as it could be to the tendon, so lucky I didn't touch the tendon." -- Flames defenseman Dougie Hamilton on his lower-body injury
"You just don't really feel like you're in these games. It's just playing from behind all the time now. It makes it really difficult, especially when things aren't going well and guys aren't feeling good about themselves, to really get anything going." -- Jets captain Blake Wheeler

Need to know

The Flames have won five in a row on the road and are 28-0-1 when leading after two periods. … The Jets are 5-11-1 against the Pacific Division.

What's next

Flames: Host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday (9 p.m. ET; SNW, ROOT, NHL.TV)
Jets: At the Nashville Predators on Monday (8 p.m. ET; FS-TN, TSN3, NHL.TV)