It’s game day! The Calgary Flames will face off against the Minnesota Wild tonight. Let’s check out some more Flames news.
Trying to hopefully recover from a 2-1 loss against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday evening, the Calgary Flames will look to do that against the Minnesota Wild tonight. However, the Wild will also be looking to recover from their loss last night against the Winnipeg Jets.
The Flames are 4-3-0 while the Wild are 1-2-2. But don’t count the Wild out just yet. In order for the Flames to win, they absolutely have to keep their discipline in check tonight. The Wild are currently leading the league in PP% with 33.3%. They’re 5 for 15 on the PP this year and they’ve scored at least one powerplay play goal in their last four games.
And while we know that young Matthew Tkachuk has a knack for taking penalties (sometimes bad, sometimes good), head coach Glen Gulutzan came to his defence.
Calgary Flames
Via Calgary Herald:
"“With Chucky . . . he’s in the fabric of the game,” the Flames head coach said. “He’s in the trenches of the game. He’s in the bowels of the game. For me, you have to live with some of those penalties. But he draws a lot of penalties. He draws more than he takes.”“The penalty (Thursday)? I will sit him for that penalty,” Gulutzan said. “And I did (Thursday). But the other (penalties Tkachuk takes), there’s some you have to live with because he’s in there. He’s not in the quiet, fluffy, fun zones. He’s in the tough zones. I don’t mind that. We need that. That’s how we’re ultimately going to win here.“He just has to make sure he’s on the line better than he was (Thursday). Plain and simple.”"
What to watch for against the Wild can be found here.
Tkachuk is currently tied with Sam Bennett for the team lead in PIM with 12. The Flames are lucky their penalty-killing abilities have been quite good (4th in the league at 88.6%) because they would definitely not be over 0.500 if it wasn’t, since the Flames have been shorthanded a total of 35 times.
Some links surrounding the Flames
Calgary Flames: Three things to watch for vs Minnesota Wild (Yours truly).
In wake of bad penalty, Flames come to Tkachuk’s defence (Calgary Herald).
Flames Notebook: Why the 3M Line shouldn’t be split up (Sportsnet).
Flames’ Kris Versteeg suffers scary shift, getting hit hard with puck twice (Calgary Herald).
Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL
Five things we learned in the NHL: Sedin continues march to 1,000 (Sportsnet).
Losing streak has Price, Canadiens shaking heads (NHL.com).
Ovechkin passes Jagr for most regular-season overtime goals (NHL.com).
NHL admits Avalanche wuz robbed by video review (CBC Sports).
Next: Why is the Flames defense corps not defending?
That’s all in today’s Flames Daily!