Flames hold on to beat slumping Sharks

CALGARY (Reuters) - The Calgary Flames battled to a 4-3 victory over the slumping San Jose Sharks on Friday to draw level on points with the Detroit Red Wings in the race for the final Western Conference playoff spot.

Both have 81 points after the Red Wings's shootout loss to Edmonton but Detroit (34-23-13) remain in eighth place because they have played one less game than the Flames (36-26-9).

"Our emotion level was there tonight," Flames coach Brent Sutter told reporters. "Our urgency level was there. Our intensity for all three periods was there."

Rookie Mikael Blacklund put the Flames on course for the playoffs with assists on a pair of second period goals that gave Calgary a 4-1 lead.

However, he also helped the Sharks get back into the game in the third period when his pass to Miikka Kiprusoff slid past the netminder and gave San Jose's Manny Malhotra the easiest of tap-ins to make it 4-2 with about eight minutes to play.

"Embarrassing," Backlund said when asked about the mistake. "I was dying tired and was trying to freeze it. Communication in Swedish and Finnish doesn't really work always."

When Dan Boyle scored with 1:51 to play to close the gap to 4-3, Backlund became even more concerned.

"I said to myself 'please don't score a fourth one,'" he added. "I was so mad at myself."

But Finn Kiprusoff, who had 25 saves, shut the door on the Sharks the remainder of the period to ensure the Pacific Division leaders lost for a fifth successive game.

Four different players scored for the Flames.

Jarome Iginla and Daymond Langkow gave Calgary a 2-0 first period advantage while Nigel Dawes and Eric Nystrom scored in the second off Backlund assists.

The latter gave the Flames a 4-1 advantage as San Jose's Dany Heatley also scored in the second

Russian Evgeni Nabokov stopped 20 shots for the Sharks.

(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Salvo, North Carolina; Editing by John O'Brien)