Dustin Wolf made 20 saves on 23 shots in 40 minutes of relief duty for the Flames (5-7-0), who had won four in a row and five of their previous six.

Devin Cooley stopped eight of the nine shots he faced before sustaining a lower-body injury following a collision in the crease with Oilers forward Colton Dach with 12 seconds left in the first period.

“You don’t want to see anyone get hurt, let alone a guy that’s been playing some of his best hockey,” Wolf said of Cooley, who started all four games of Calgary’s winning streak. “It’s unfortunate, we have to try and build around it and not rely on one guy, we’re a whole group in here, that’s how we have to play.

“We’ll just come back in here tomorrow, it’s a new day and focus on Friday.”

Dach was assessed a goalkeeper interference penalty, and Wolf came in to start the second period.

“I mean, I hate going out for the second period and seeing him not lead their team out,” Dach said. “I’m just trying to take it to the net and create a chance. But really unfortunate that he got hurt. That’s part of my game, getting to front of the net. Obviously, I don’t want to take a goalie out. That’s not my intent. But being hard below the net, in the crease and just trying to get a goal that way.”

Mathieu Joseph put Edmonton ahead 1-0 on their first shot of the game at 7:46 of the first period. McDavid sent a pass from the right dot across the slot to Joseph for the put away underneath Cooley’s right arm.

“For two periods it was a really hard game, there was not a lot of room on the ice, it was more of a grind-type game,” said Flames coach Ryan Huska. “Certain players, I felt, for us could have been much harder than they were tonight in those types of situations and that might have been a result of the sporadic going-to-the-net-harder type of thing.”

Mattias Ekholm made it 2-0 at 4:52 of the second period with a wrist shot from the point over Wolf’s left shoulder, off the crossbar and in. The defenseman returned to the lineup after sitting out two games with a concussion.

“I thought we were a little too much in the perimeter, on the outside today compared to other games,” said Flames captain Mikael Backlund. “We didn’t get enough traffic and bodies around.

“We got enough shots, but I think that’s something we’ve done well lately and it’s something that we can do better than we did today.”