Calgary Flames win streak comes to an end against Ottawa Senators

Well, it couldn’t last forever. The Calgary Flames three-game win streak comes to an end with a 6-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators.

I was hoping the Calgary Flames would continue their win-streak for the next 77 games, but that’s my own fault for unrealistic expectations. After a three-game win streak and a SoCal sweep, their first in 25 years, the Flames win-streak comes to an end in a 6-0 shutout loss against the Ottawa Senators.

Their three-game win streak came to an end as did Johnny Gaudreau‘s three-game point streak where he had seven points in those three games. Cue the sad violin music.

The Flames started the game off quite strong, actually. And even though they had that win streak, they heard the message loud and clear from head coach Glen Gulutzan. In three of their first four games, the Flames allowed more than 40 shots on net, keeping Mike Smith busy. Gulutzan wasn’t impressed – despite the win streak. In this game though, they only allowed 28 shots, but that’s basically the only good thing they did. In this game, they didn’t even allow the Sens a shot on goal until around the ~9-minute mark.

Related Story: Glen Gulutzan not impressed despite third straight win

With not much watching from Curtis Lazar and Matt Bartkowski not being able to keep his guy at bay, we get a Sens goal from Cody Ceci late in the first period. It was, in fact, the Senators only even-strength scoring chance all game. Slightly unlucky for the Flames (cue the Friday the 13th references).

In the first period, the Flames had 16 even-strength shot attempts compared to the Sens six. It was a weird period.

The Flames really got unlucky in this game because they were very dominant. And again, the Flames were mostly dominant in even-strength chances. What hurt them was their indiscipline. Even if the Sens aren’t scoring on the powerplay, these are chances being taken away from the Flames as well.

Before this game, the Senators had the most powerplays without a goal in the league, going 0/16 with the man-advantage. Then in the second period, Dougie Hamilton gets a penalty. The Flames fourth penalty of the night so far. While Derick Brassard didn’t score on the powerplay, literally half a second later he did. So it doesn’t count as a powerplay goal, but it happened from the pressure the Sens put on while on the powerplay. They go up 2-0 heading into the third period. And the Flames fell apart.

A late penalty by Jaromir Jagr in the second period would give the Senators a powerplay to start the third. And they finally scored their first powerplay goal all season long. We don’t really need to talk about it, but the Sens would go on to score three more – one more on the powerplay. They went 2/7 on the powerplay and they continue to remain 100% on their penalty-kill on the season. The Flames did have chances – especially Jaromir Jagr, who made his home debut tonight.

In the third period, the Calgary Flames completely dominated them again. They had 19 even-strength shot attempts compared to just six for the Senators. Again, this was a weird game. As incredible as Mike Smith’s been, we saw a goaltending change after the fifth goal. It was somewhat of a wake-up call to the team. Smith can’t keep bailing them out of games.

But it was still a weird one, especially to not even score with all the chances they had.

I blame it on Friday the 13th.

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No time to dwell on it though, because the Calgary Flames are already on a plane headed west to play the Vancouver Canucks tomorrow night. Let’s put this one in the past (please).