Calgary Flames special teams: History repeats itself

The Calgary Flames’ special teams have been quite bad lately. We’ve seen this trend last year where it was a big factor in their losses to start the season.

The Calgary Flames may have won last night and may not have allowed a powerplay goal against, but the Washington Capitals came close. And although they didn’t allow a powerplay goal against, they still couldn’t capitalize on any of their powerplays and in the last few games, their special teams, in general, have been nothing short of awful.

The Flames have not scored a powerplay goal in four games, going 0/10. In their 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild, they went just 1/6 on their powerplay. Not including last night’s game, in the three games before that, for three games in a row, they allowed two powerplay goals against on just three pp opportunities, giving them just a 33.3% pk%.

On a brighter note, last night, they killed off both Capitals penalties.

But this needs to change. In the losses to the St. Louis Blues and the Dallas Stars, their special teams were their downfall and were the reason they didn’t win. And we saw this trend last year.

Last year at the end of October, the Flames were 27th in the league on their PP at 10.8%. They were 28th on the PK at 72.1%. While this season is ever so slightly better (14.3% PP, 77.5% PK), let’s keep in mind that the Flames started off the season quite decently on their special teams.

In the last two weeks, the Flames are 2-4-0, they’re dead last on the PP at 5.9% and they’re second last on the PK at 60%. Earlier, a problem wasn’t their special teams, it was their inability to stay out of the penalty box. And while their discipline has been getting better, now their special teams are falling apart. But the good news with the penalty kill, and I’ve mentioned this before, but it seems like head coach Glen Gulutzan has identified the problem.

Via Calgary Flames:

"“So, two nights in a row [vs. STL and NSH] 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.”"

Last night, we also saw a change on the penalty-kill, adding Sean Monahan on there with Mikael Backlund which seemed to work.

Monahan and Bennett getting some PK reps after Backlund and Frolik start it off. #Flames
— Aaron Vickers (@AAVickers) October 30, 2017

The good news is that they’re recognizing the problems and they’re actually making changes happen. Last season, it took a while for their special teams to even be somewhat decent. Now on to the power play…

Like I mentioned earlier, the Calgary Flames have not scored a powerplay goal in their last four games. They’ve only scored one in their last 17 opportunities and two in their last 26 opportunities. A problem may be who keeps getting PP minutes.

Brouwer has had 19:26 of PP time and not yet been on for a PP goal. Ferland, whose linemates are on the PP, has been on for 3 PPG in 11:40.
— Darren Haynes (@DarrenWHaynes) October 28, 2017

For some reason, the Flames continue to put Troy Brouwer on the man-advantage over Micheal Ferland. To be fair, Brouwer was actually not bad last night against the Capitals (at even-strength, not on the powerplay), but I’m still scratching my head at the coaching staff’s decisions.

Next: Flames need to stay out of the penalty box

The Flames special teams have cost them at least two games so far this season and probably three in the 12 they’ve played and in the six they’ve lost. It almost cost them one of their wins too. Let’s hope the Flames can make some adjustments in time for the game on Thursday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins, who could very well get their first win against the Flames in two years if the Flames special teams go awry.

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