Calgary Flames Daily: Special teams costing them games… again
By Ramina Shlah
It’s a new season which means another year of special teams plaguing the Calgary Flames again. Let’s check out some more Flames news.
It’s still early on in the season, but the Calgary Flames are returning to old habits. Not only are the Flames inability to remain out of the penalty box an issue, but in the past few games, their special teams haven’t been all that great.
In the game last night against the St. Louis Blues, they allowed two powerplay goals against on three Blues PP opportunities. And while the Flames came close to scoring a powerplay goal in their second PP attempt, they went 0/2. In the game the night before against the Nashville Predators, the Preds went 2/3 on their PP while the Flames were 0/4. Let’s hope this trend doesn’t continue.
But it’s a good thing that head coach Glen Gulutzan has recognized the problem in their penalty-killing – their zone entries.
Related Story: Mikael Backlund’s two goals no match for Blues
Via Calgaryflames.com:
"“So, two nights in a row we’ve given up two-for-three, two-for-three on the powerplay,” coach Glen Gulutzan said. “When you’re playing your back-to-backs, your penalty kill has to be better. Our penalty kill, quite frankly, doesn’t look anything near what it should, and we’ve got to clean that area up. Because tonight it put us in a hole. Nashville, it put us in a hole. Tonight, we couldn’t get out of it.“The biggest issue with the penalty kill right now is our zone entries. We are not stopping people. They’re walking into our zone uncontested, setting up. And if you’re going to let somebody stay in your zone for two minutes, you can’t get a clear, but if you can’t even stop them from coming in, you’re going to get scored on. That’s just the nature of the game. I like our in-zone kill; being organized at the blueline right now and denying entires is not where it needs to be. It’s not NHL level, and we’ve got to get it there.”"
The Calgary Flames return back to the ‘Dome tomorrow night against the Dallas Stars. That’ll mark the start of a seven-game home stance – their longest of the season. While the Flames were looking to get a five-game win streak on the road last night (which they didn’t achieve), their home record is slightly different.
They’ve been unfortunately struggling on home-ice in front of their fans and have just one win at the ‘Dome. They’re currently on a three-game home losing streak. Let’s hope they break that trend and keep above .500 heading into November.
Flames Tweet of the day
Jagr had two goals and an assist https://t.co/UCZIiy7uRN
— supernintendo chalmers (@helmerroids) October 25, 2017
Hockey Tweet of the day
The Kings debating who will cover Erik Karlsson before the start of overtime is great pic.twitter.com/pLnXagiksP
— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) October 25, 2017
Some links surrounding the Flames
Five thoughts: Special teams cost Flames again in loss to Blues (Sportsnet).
Flames allow two more power-play goals in road loss to Blues (Calgary Sun).
Flames Lack luck as Blues snap Calgary’s road streak (CBC Sports).
Finally! Flames centre Mark Jankowski pumped for Saddledome debut (Calgary Sun).
Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL
2016-17 Upper Deck The Cup hockey is a truly grand finale (FanSided).
An early-season takeaway for each of Canada’s seven NHL teams (Sportsnet).
Retired NHL player Shane Doan joins league’s front office (CBC Sports).
NHL agent causes stir with tweet about Galchenyuk and Julien (Sportsnet).
Next: What's going on with Sam Bennett?
That’s all in today’s Flames Daily! Let’s just hope that all they’re doing in practice is penalty-killing and practising with the man advantage. They need all the help they could get.