Flames tie it in 3rd, defeat Islanders in shootout

CALGARY -- Dustin Wolf made 28 saves to help the Calgary Flames rally for a 2-1 shootout win against the New York Islanders at Scotiabank Saddledome on Tuesday.

Andrei Kuzmenko deked backhand and lifted a shot over the blocker of New York goalie Semyon Varlamov in the second round of the shootout before Justin Kirkland shot low glove by Varlamov in the third. Wolf stopped both shooters he faced.

"An absolute grind, honestly," Calgary defenseman Rasmus Andersson said. "It was just a grind in the trenches, and we end up winning in the shootout. It's a tough team to play against, right? They hit, they shoot, they block shots. It was a game in the trenches. It felt like you got hit all night, but I'm proud that we stuck with it and extra nice that special teams were the factor along with 'Wolfie.' Wolfie was unbelievable in net."

Andersson scored for the Flames (10-6-3), who have won three of four.

"A lot of battling and competing, lot of chipped pucks," Kirkland said. "It wasn't really your clean game as it normally is, but we battled hard right until the end. As long as it took, we were willing to do that and come out of it with two points, we're pretty happy with it."

Pierre Engvall scored, and Varlamov made 30 saves for the Islanders (7-7-5), who have lost four of five but have points in six of seven (3-1-3).

"Look, I thought that we played a great game, again, and we could've won that game," New York coach Patrick Roy said. "Both teams played well. I cannot say that we outplayed them, or they outplayed us. I thought both teams played well, and they won in a shootout."

Engvall scored 1:32 into the second period to put the Islanders up 1-0. He toe-dragged by defenseman Daniil Miromanov before snapping a shot by Wolf's glove from inside the left face-off circle.

"It's really nice to score a goal again," said Engvall, who has scored in three straight games. "I had a lot of time. Good play by [Scott Mayfield] to find me and I'm just trying to shoot and nice to see it go in."

Andersson tied the game 1-1 at 8:17 of the third period with a power-play goal, a one-timer from the top of the slot on a pass from Nazem Kadri that beat Varlamov's blocker.

The goal came after Wolf kicked out his right pad to stop Bo Horvat at the edge of the crease at 4:07, and made a stick save on Maxim Tsyplakov's chance on a partial breakaway at 4:46. Wolf also made consecutive saves on Noah Dobson at 5:10 after Dobson activated down from the point.

"Your objective is to keep as many goals off the board as possible, but the tendency of our group so far this year is the resiliency," Wolf said. "Whether we have a good 40 minutes or 40 minutes we don’t like, we find a way in the last 20 minutes to get something together. It was a great power-play goal there, we were moving the puck around, it was good to see."

Wolf also slid over to stop Kyle Palmieri's one-timer from the left face-off dot at 14:15, and Varlamov made a right-pad save on Mikael Backlund's rebound attempt after he initially kicked out Miromanov's point shot.

"One-goal game," Roy said. "It could go either way, for us or against us. But their goalie made some great saves. I'm thinking about that cross-pass on Palmieri. That was a really good save he made there. I thought both goalies played well. We had our chance to win this game, we just didn't score the goal that would've made the difference is all."

NOTES: Wolf is 6-1-0 with a 1.83 goals-against average and .944 save percentage in seven home starts this season. ... Andersson, who leads the Flames with 12 points (four goals, eight assists), has been in on 25 percent of Calgary's 48 goals this season. ... Islanders defenseman Alexander Romanov had two shots and eight hits in 21:04 of ice time in his return after missing seven straight because of an upper-body injury.