Calgary Flames Daily: Falling Victim to the Curse of Post-Bye-Week
By Ramina Shlah
Good afternoon Calgary Flames fans. No exclamation point today, I’m still bitter over the loss last night. Let’s take a look at Flames news.
I know I said “Good afternoon Calgary Flames fans”, but the ‘good afternoon’ part is a lie. After a killer first period for the Flames last night against the Arizona Coyotes where they had 19 shots and completely outplayed them, they fell asleep the rest of the game. And unfortunately, they had an embarrassing 5-0 shutout loss.
They’re not the only ones, though. This season, in the first game back from the five-day break this season, before the Flames game, teams are 3-7-1, have an average goals-for of 2.18, average goals-against of 3.36, powerplay of 12.5%, penalty kill of 78.0%, and team save% of 0.891. And unfortunately, the Flames just brought those stats down as well.
And it’s even more unfortunate that the Flames had great momentum right before the bye-week started and their game was going in the right direction. They’ve won nine of their last 12, haven’t given up the first goal in five straight games where they won four of those games, and their powerplay was improving.
More from Calgary Flames News
- Updates from Conroy: UFAs, main camp, captaincy, goaltending, prospects
- Flames captaincy updates and candidate rankings
- Camp Notes: Previewing Calgary Flames Prospects at the Young Stars Classic
- Could Flames goalie Dan Vladar be a trade option for the Avalanche?
- Roundup: Lindholm, Backlund, Hanifin Contract Updates
This bye-week seems more like a curse on teams this season rather than a relaxing break.
And somebody else falling victim is Johnny Gaudreau. After the second period, everyone noticed that Gaudreau was moved to the fourth line. when asked about this later in a post-game interview, head coach Glen Gulutzan simply said, “He turned the puck over in the neutral zone there.”
On a night that basically every player under-performed and made mistakes since the start of second period, why was Gulutzan only targeting Gaudreau? I mean, we can sense that he was unhappy with his play, but nobody was happy with anybody’s play that night.
Some links surrounding the Flames to get you through your day
Why the Calgary Flames should be aggressive at the trade deadline (Sportsnet).
Eric Francis: Gaudreau gets demoted on a night where all Flames were bad (Calgary Herald).
Calgary Flames fall prey to Arizona Coyotes in lackluster effort after five-day break (National Post).
Flames should re-sign Versteeg (The Hockey Writers).
Some other links surrounding hockey and the NHL
Basketball Jones: Jackets’ Seth applies hoops lessons to hockey (CBC Sports).
NHL 100: A weekly look at 100 years of hockey (Norfolk News).
It’s time to talk about the NHL playoff format (TSN).
Next: Predictions and Preview February 13-19
That’s all in this edition of Flames Daily! Do you think there’s some hostility between Gulutzan and Johnny?