from Wes Gilbertson of the Calgary Sun,

For most of the evening, nearly all of it, the Calgary Flames played a heck of a hockey game.

And then, as skidding squads so often do, they found a way to lose. They’ve now dropped five in a row, although they’ve at least claimed a single point in each of the past two.

It was a total of one minute of mess-ups that cost the Flames in Monday’s 4-3 overtime setback to the New York Islanders at UBS Arena — a 59-second span in which they frittered away a two-goal lead, and then Rasmus Andersson’s split-second decision to dump an opponent into the goal-post during the bonus session.

Andersson was sitting in the penalty box when Islanders defenceman Noah Dobson ripped the game-winner on a four-on-three power play.

“We still haven’t played a full 60 (minutes) yet,” groaned Flames alternate captain Mikael Backlund, who tallied twice on Long Island. “It’s frustrating. It’s tough. To play so well in the first, we came out with a lot of jump and energy, and it carried over in the second. And then we made some mistakes that cost us in the third.

“Yeah, maybe that happens when a team isn’t feeling at their best, but we have to turn this around. It starts with one win and then we have to go from there. We have a good opportunity tomorrow (in New Jersey) to bounce back and get that win.”

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