Lomberg fuels Flames' gritty response in physical win over Oilers

CALGARY – Ryan Lomberg delivered once again.

Picking off a pizza served right up the middle of the ice by Edmonton Oilers defenceman Alex Regula, the Calgary Flames' fourth-liner raced in to score a crucial goal in a 3-2 win that Lomberg wanted to be sure to make the most of.

“I got a little Pizza 73 deal here, so I think that Regula, whatever his name was, he might be helping out with some of that,” chuckled the effervescent winger following an emotional evening in which he personally set the tone.

“I told him I handed some pizzas out over the break, and I didn't mean to me. I thought we were gonna go around town and hand them out but, no, good on him. Shout out Pizza 73. Great pizza. Put it right in the oven there.”

On a Saturday night that started with plenty of posturing in a pre-game warmup that saw several players from both sides straddling the red line and exchanging reminders they didn’t like how their game four days earlier ended, it was the Flames who made good on a promise to get their noses dirty.

Avenging the recent 5-1 walkover by the Oilers, which saw the hosts’ sublime skill win the day, the Flames adjusted their approach and attitude with a gritty response that saw them take time, space and two points away from the surging Oil.

“I think it was the number one thing for us, and it was Lomberg and (linemate Adam) Klapka that started that for us,” said Flames coach Ryan Huska when asked about the role his team’s physicality played in neutralizing the Oilers.

“If you're going to play against top players in this league and allow it to be an easy game, then it's going to be a tough game for us. And I thought those two guys in particular did a really good job. The little things like that, I think, go a long way to make your team harder to play against. I thought we were better in that category.”

None of the Oilers needed to see the stat sheet to believe they were outhit 29-13 in a blatant attempt to stymie the Oilers’ creativity and will to compete in a rugged game in which every inch was earned.

That was Flames hockey.

Klapka led all skaters with six hits, and when he wasn’t throwing his 235-pound frame around, he was making a series of skilled plays that earned him a temporary promotion to Nazem Kadri’s line after Joel Farabee left the game for 10 minutes with what was later deemed a stinger.

In that time, Klapka demonstrated once again why he deserves further consideration for more minutes, after he spun to make a no-look pass from the corner that found Yegor Sharangovich, who easily turned it into a 1-0 lead.

All told, Klapka had three shots on goal, four hits and was the only Flame on the ice for all three Calgary goals.

“I thought Klapper might have had his best game of the year,” said Huska, of the six-foot-eight revelation who had a nifty deflection, a sassy spin-o-rama in his own zone and drove wide around a defender for a late scoring chance that bounced off the post. 

“He did a lot of really good things for us tonight. He played like a big man, like we want him to play consistently. That's kind of been our challenge with him this year. You'd see it in flashes, and then it goes away for a bit. He will be a really impressive player once he finds that consistency in his game, he'd be a hard guy to handle.”

The tenacious forecheck required for the Flames to be successful was best exemplified by the fourth line, but also on display by Mikael Backlund’s checking trio with Blake Coleman and Connor Zary. 

Both lines scored crucial goals, including Coleman’s game-winning combo with Backlund, which saw the prettiest of give-and-gos started and finished by Coleman with seven minutes left.

“Big goal,” said the coach of Backlund’s line, which “limited” Connor McDavid to a goal, two posts and seven shots on goal. 

“I just like their approach tonight. I thought they were skating. I thought they checked hard. I thought they had purpose to what they were doing. Blake was energized. He was one guy tonight that took his game to another level, which was something that we needed.”

No amount of gifts, turkey or sleep over the Christmas break allowed the Flames to shake the embarrassment they felt in Edmonton.

“Obviously, we weren't happy with how we left things off before the break, and we had a handful of days to think about it,” said Lomberg, who recently switched sticks and now has three goals in his last five outings.

“We kind of righted the ship, and now it's big on us to move forward and stay that way.”

On a night when a sold-out Saddledome was at its boisterous best, it was Lomberg’s goal that almost blew the roof off a joint destined for a similar fate two years from now.

“Everything Ryan Lomberg does is a bigger pop,” said Coleman, whose club benefited from a few extra bounces, as Dustin Wolf saw four Oilers shots ring off the iron behind him. 

“That personality… when he does get things done out there, it gets the whole bench and the whole crowd fired up. So, credit to him. He was really good tonight.”