Calgary Flames Shutout By Vancouver Canucks – Game Recap
By Traci Kay
Photo Credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
The effort is there. The potential to win is hiding somewhere behind the hearts of the Calgary Flames. But those wins just haven’t shown up quite yet. With a string of bad luck and unfortunate events, the Flames seemed destine to lose this game.
Barely two minutes into the game against the Vancouver Canucks, Brian McGrattan made a hit on Andrew Alberts that seemed like a good shoulder on shoulder hit, but McGrattan’s elbow came up because of his larger stature. Alberts went down and took quite a while to get back up. Thankfully, he was able to skate off the ice. But he did not return to the game.
In the meantime, Tom Sestito skated over to make McGrattan answer for the hit on Alberts. McGrattan was handed a five minute major penalty as well as a game misconduct and then left the ice.
Too Many Men On The Site has a link to the hit and more information on the McGrattan hit. What do you think will happen to McGrattan?
The game moved forward and the Flames killed off the five minute major. They held on during the first period but it wasn’t enough to come out unscathed. The period ended with a score of 1-0.
The second period was a full twenty minutes of the Flames on the defensive as they held off the Canucks. Calgary wasn’t able to set up a play, let alone take many shots on net.
Onto the third period…
The Flames seemed to have found their skating legs this period, but things didn’t go their way and they weren’t able to set up any quality plays that could get them on the board. They dug deep, they put pressure on the Canucks net, they took a few more shots than in the first two periods, and they even hit the post a couple of times, but it wasn’t enough. An empty net and an extra attacker still wasn’t enough for the Flames to score their first goal.
Stempniak was no match for Eddie Lack. Monahan couldn’t seem to follow through on the plays. There was no call on the high stick that left Stajan bleeding from the mouth. Nothing seemed to work out in their favor.
On the other hand, Reto Berra was solid in net after the first few minutes of the first period, Joe Colborne won 67% of face-offs, and Lance Bouma played a physical offensive and defensive game. But none of that was enough to stop the Canucks from scoring again in the third and getting the shutout. Vancouver won with a final score of 2-0
Like I said, the potential to win is there. I just hope this game of bad luck doesn’t have an effect on them for long because they played well.
Shake it off, guys, you’re doing a good job!