Calgary Flames: What Went Wrong in the Series Opener

Bad line change

The second thing that went wrong in this game was that awful line change that’s probably going to haunt the Calgary Flames for the next ten years. I know, this was just one bad move that was made that resulted in a goal. But I truly believe that without this mistake, the Flames would have won.

At one point, the puck was in the Anaheim zone and the Flames took the opportunity to do a wholesale line change. All five guys were headed to the bench. So, the Ducks used that to their advantage. They noticed the Flames were making a full line change and decided to shoot the puck down the ice.

It was a 3-on-0 breakaway, essentially. Nothing Brian Elliott could do about that and he is completely 100% not to blame for that goal. It was, and for lack of better words, a stupid line change. It was horrible and I’m pretty sure I almost cried watching it.

The Flames were up 2-1 before that goal. The Ducks made it 2-2 and why I believe the Flames could have won is that you could tell something like that brought their morale down. After that goal, emotions were running high. The Flames took a penalty (surprise) 25 seconds after they let in that goal. Then they took another one three seconds after they killed off that penalty. And the Ducks capitalized on that second PP which made the game 3-2 and the game would stay that way.

Without that goal, the Flames wouldn’t have been shot down. They may have not taken that initial penalty and maybe not even the second one either. I mean, we’ll truly never know how the game would have turned out. But a bad line change potentially cost them this game.

Via Calgaryflames.com:

"It’s tough,” said the heroic Brian Elliott, “when we give them everything. “Two powerplay goals and a bad change. It’s not like they earned it that much. “We kinda gave it to them.” “We clean things up and we’ll take care of business.”"