Flames defeat Jets in Game 1 of Cup Qualifiers

The Calgary Flames scored twice on the power play and once while shorthanded in a 4-1 win against the Winnipeg Jets in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Qualifiers at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday.

The Flames, the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference, went 7-for-7 on the penalty kill.

"A lot of great play from a lot of great players," said Johnny Gaudreau, who scored Calgary's first goal. "I was really happy with our team effort tonight. It was a really good, complete game from power play to penalty kill to goaltending to 5-on-5. I thought we did a great job tonight."

Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves for the Jets, the No. 9 seed in the West.

"We didn't play very well," Winnipeg captain Blake Wheeler said. "We can play a lot better than that. That's a positive. We come out and play a brand of hockey that is suited to us and clean up our special teams a little bit. They scored twice on the power play and once shorthanded. So do a little bit better job on our special teams and build a bit more simplicity into our game 5-on-5, and that's it. It's one game."

WATCH: [All Jets vs. Flames highlights]

Jets center Mark Scheifele sustained a lower-body injury 5:39 into the first period in a collision with Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk along the right boards in the Calgary zone.

"It was intentional," Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice said. "It was a filthy, dirty kick to the back of the leg."

Scheifele and forward Patrik Laine, who left the game at 5:44 of the third period with an apparent upper-body injury after an exchange with Flames defenseman Mark Giordano, each will see a specialist Sunday, Maurice said.

"I'm backchecking on him, and it's such an accident," Tkachuk said. "I felt terrible from the result of it. I remember he was turning away. I just went in and my left skate had a little bit of the speed wobbles, and I was moving probably too fast for myself and was going down, and my leg just collided with it, looked like it jammed him up."

Game 2 of the best-of-5 series is in Edmonton, the Western Conference hub city, on Monday (2:30 p.m. ET; NHLN, NHL.TV, SN). The series winner advances to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

There hasn't been a best-of-5 series in the NHL since 1986. The League used them for the preliminary round of the playoffs from 1980-86, and the team that won Game 1 went on to win the series 87.5 percent of the time (49 of 56).

Cam Talbot made 17 saves for the Flames.

"It's a quick series. You can't start out flat-footed," Gaudreau said. "I thought we did a great job tonight. I thought this was the perfect game for us to set up for the series. Just really proud of the team. They did a really good job tonight, and [Talbot] was solid back there. It was a big way to start this five-game series and a big win for us."

After Andrew Copp put the Jets up 1-0 at 8:51 of the first, the Flames scored three straight special-teams goals.

Gaudreau tied it 1-1 at 7:06 of the second when he lifted a shot over Hellebuyck on the power play. It was his first postseason goal in 10 games, dating to May 10, 2015.

"It was nice, obviously," Gaudreau said. "Kind of try to block all that stuff out. It was nice to tie the game up there, and we got rolling right after that."

Tobias Rieder put Calgary ahead 2-1 at 12:51 when he backhanded a shot by Hellebuyck's glove on a shorthanded breakaway.

"I just saw the hard rim coming and they were trying to hold it into the blue line, and it squirted out to my feet," Rieder said. "I had lots of room to skate. I was trying to settle the puck down. It was rolling for a long time. I went to my backhand. Luckily, it went in."

Mikael Backlund scored on the power play to make it 3-1 at 18:14.

Andrew Mangiapane, who had an assist on Backlund's goal, scored into an empty net at 18:19 of the third for the 4-1 final.

"I think that's been our calling card all year, being able to handle adversity right from the first day of training camp," Copp said of the injuries. "If you even want to go back into the [offseason] a little bit, we've handled it as well as we can all year in terms of on-ice performance. But we've handled it mentally even better, I think. It's going to be another hurdle for us, but like I said, we've been doing it all year."