Calgary Flames: Elliott’s 36 Saves No Match For League-Leading Capitals

The Calgary Flames began their three-game road trip with an unfortunate loss against the league-leading Washington Capitals. Brian Elliott also missed out on something important.

The Calgary Flames, after being one of the best teams in the league right now, couldn’t hanle the Washington Capitals. And as good as Brian Elliott was, he couldn’t do much more for his team.

The Capitals did open up the scoring in this game because of a bad turnover by Johnny Gaudreau. But it’s alright, because the Flames would end up scoring later in the period with a goal from Sean Monahan because of a great feed from Gaudreau.

The final score for this one would be 4-2.

Let’s split this up into two categories.

Calgary Flames

Special teams

The Calgary Flames special teams haven’t exactly been a topic of conversation lately. But recently, they should be. But not for a good reason.

In tonight’s game, they went 0/1 on the powerplay and let the Caps go 2/3 on their PP. To be fair, their PK hasn’t been too bad, except for the past few games. But these past few games are where the Flames could have used those extra wins.

Now let’s talk about someone in particular for the other category.

Brian Elliott

As incredible as Brian Elliott was tonight, he unfortunately couldn’t bring his team to a win. And he did everything right. And he deserved this win. But unfortunately for him, the players in front of him couldn’t help him out much. He stopped 36 of 40 shots and it’s hardly to say that any of the goals were his fault.

Now, why I said that he deserved the win specifically for this game is because he was at an 11-game win streak. Not only was that a personal career-high for him, but it was also tied for a franchise record with former Flames Mike Vernon. With a win tonight, he would have set a new franchise record that was last set in 1989.

Next: Battle of Alberta on the horizon in mid-April?

That’s all for this post-game recap. There wasn’t a whole lot to talk about here. The Flames will remain in the first wildcard spot with this loss instead of moving up to second Pacific Division spot. They only have nine games left in their season, so let’s hope they can somehow win home-ice advantage for that first round.