Flames 5, Panthers 4, OT

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) -The Calgary Flames overcame a pair of obstacles to earn their first overtime victory of the season.

Mark Giordano scored 4:30 into overtime to give Calgary a 5-4 win over the Florida Panthers on Thursday night, a victory marred by an injury to leading scorer Jarome Iginla.

Calgary scored when Stephane Yelle won a face-off from Jozef Stumpel and drew the puck back to Dion Phaneuf. He then fed a pass across to Giordano, who fired a hard slapshot past Alex Auld.

"The guys score for me and I don't do my job at my end," Auld said. "Probably more than any game I've ever played, I felt that game was more my fault than anything else."

Iginla left the game in the second period after suffering a lower body injury in a fight with Panthers defenseman Bryan Allen. At 9:35 of the second period, the Flames captain challenged Allen to a fight in retaliation for Allen's heavy hit on Chuck Kobasew earlier in the game that knocked the Flames forward from the game.

"It's tough to fill a guy's spot, a guy like Jarome, but the guys did a great job of stepping up in the last five minutes and it continued into overtime," said Giordano.

It was a spirited fight that ended up with Iginla on top of Allen. Nothing appeared wrong initially as Iginla served his fighting major. However, upon exiting the penalty box, Iginla went to the Flames dressing room and did not return.

"You certainly don't want a guy that has 53 points breaking his hand but that's Jarome, that's his game, and you can't take that away from him," said Jamie McLennan, who made 38 saves in his first home start of the season.

"There are different leaders and different warriors in this league and when you have a guy that's third or fourth in the league in scoring and he's stepping up and fighting for his team, that shows his character."

Iginla entered the night fourth in the NHL in scoring with 22 goals and 30 assists. He scored his 23rd goal in the first period.

Without Iginla on the bench, Calgary saw its 2-1 third period lead evaporate on two goals by Rostislav Olesz and the first NHL goal for David Booth. However, trailing 4-2, the Flames launched their own comeback.

Byron Ritchie got Calgary back within one at 16:54 and David Moss took Jeff Friesen's pass and moved out front before tucking a shot inside the far post to tie it 4-4 at 18:22 and set the stage for Calgary's first overtime win of the season.

Alex Tanguay also scored for Calgary (19-15-4).

Bouwmeester had the other goal for Florida (15-20-7).

Notes: Florida and Calgary entered the night as the only two teams without an overtime or shootout victory. ... After three games on the Flames second line, Tanguay returned to the top line alongside C Daymond Langkow and Iginla. ... Florida put LW Gary Roberts on injured reserve Thursday afternoon and recalled forwards Janis Sprukts and Anthony Stewart from Rochester (AHL). Both were in the line-up against Calgary. ... Including the playoffs, Calgary G Miikka Kiprusoff had started 86 of the last 88 games at the Pengrowth Saddledome dating back to Feb. 10, 2004, when he returned from a knee injury.