Calgary Flames finally achieve 0.500 at home against New Jersey Devils

After one of the most exciting hockey games this season for the Calgary Flames, they finally get to 0.500 on home ice with a win over the New Jersey Devils.

In an extremely exciting hockey game against the New Jersey Devils (never thought I’d say that), the Calgary Flames managed to come out on top. It was a very back and forth type of game and the Flames and this game would need extra time. The Flames make it three straight wins at home and are 3-1-0 in their seven-game homestand. They’re now finally 0.500 at home, being 4-4-0 on home-ice.

First period

The first period had all kinds of action. The Devils get on the board early on their first shot in the game from a bad turnover by captain Mark Giordano in the neutral zone. A shot by 2017 1st overall pick, Nico Hischier, doesn’t go in. But Taylor Hall scores on the rebound. Hall is pretty used to playing against this Calgary Flames team. Heading into this game, he has 25 points in 27 games against the Flames.

The Devils had more of a push in the first period, but the Flames definitely answered back in the second half. They had a powerplay chance in which they couldn’t capitalize on, then before the midway mark, Brett Kulak went to the sin bin for a holding call. But thanks to all the hockey gods for Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik, who are some of the best penalty-killers in the league. They managed to score a shorthanded goal, tying the game at one apiece.

A couple minutes later, Johnny Gaudreau made an excellent play at the blue line that resulted in a chance for Michael Ferland, who was taken down in front of the net and got a penalty shot. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the puck over Keith Kinkaid’s pad, and the score remains 1-1.

Later, the Flames would go on a powerplay which lasted less than a minute because Sam Bennett takes an interference penalty. While the Devils were unable to capitalize on their short powerplay, Bennett gets a breakaway chance as he leaves the penalty box. But just like how his season is going, he was unable to get past Kinkaid. Bennett’s still looking for his first point this season.

later, Mark Jankowski had a good chance as well, but couldn’t find the back of the net. He’s still looking for his first NHL goal.

Second period

The first half of the second period started off quite uneventful. The Devils took an early lead again with a goal by Ben Lovejoy less than two minutes into the period. More like… Ben Hatejoy. I’m sorry. Moving on.

Calgary Flames

Other than the Devils getting back their lead, the game remained uneventful for most of the first half of the period. But a little bit past the midway mark, Michael Stone gets his first goal of the season. Stone drew in on that second pairing alongside T.J. Brodie tonight since Travis Hamonic is out with an injury. Michael Frolik gets his second point of the game with an assist on Stone’s goal.

Less than a minute and a half after Stone’s goal, Sean Monahan wrists it in the net to give the Calgary Flames their first lead of the game and his eighth goal of the season. With assists to Micheal Ferland and Johnny Gaudreau. Ferland has definitely been finding his rhythm over the last few games and Gaudreau is now on a four-game point streak. Johnny now has points in eight of his last nine games. and is averaging an assist a game. He now has 17 points in 14 games. This was also the first time since October 14th that the Flames have more than two goals in regulation.

But that lead didn’t last long. Ten seconds later, the Devils get back on the board. We’ve got a tie game. After forty minutes of play, Stone led all skaters with 4 shots on net. Let me tell you, I definitely didn’t predict that.

Third period

After some fun hockey for forty minutes, you know it was going to continue. It went back and forth the first couple of minutes and less than four minutes in, Mike Smith makes an incredible game-saving save on Nico Hischier who already has two assists tonight.

A couple minutes later, Keith Kinkaid slid over and made a great save on Dougie Hamilton. But the Flames kept up the momentum because moments later, Micheal Ferland took a nice pass from Johnny Gaudreau to give the Flames the lead again. Monahan was the second assist on the goal and Johnny now has 15 assists in 14 games while Monahan got his second point in the game and has 13 points in 14 games. Gaudreau’s 15 assists in 14 games is tied for second in the NHL and analysts are barely talking about him. He’s just quietly sneaking his way up the player stats. But the only player who has more assists than Gaudreau now is Steven Stamkos.

Related Story: Johnny Gaudreau is already miles better than last season

A little past the midway mark, Mike Smith was a little bit slow getting back to the net as he stopped the puck behind the net. This error, which Smith has not been making a lot of lately and has been a big reason for their recent success, did cost them this goal. We have a tie-game. A couple minutes later, Miles Wood would now get a penalty shot. So we get two penalty shots in one game. I told you this was a good one.

And thankfully, no goal resulted from that. We still have a tie game and this would need some extra time.

Overtime/shootout

We head to extra time where both teams have been perfect so far. The Devils heading into this game were 1-0 in OT and 2-0 in a shootout. The Calgary Flames, on the other hand, were 2-0 in OT and 1-0 in a shootout. This was really anybody’s game.

There were a couple of good chances for both teams in overtime, but ultimately, this needed more time. So off to the shootout we’d go. Sean Monahan got the first goal for the Flames. While Mike Smith stopped Taylor Hall and Jesper Bratt, he was no match for Drew Stafford who got it above Smith’s pads. Now it was down to Matthew Tkachuk, the Flames final shooter, who also got the shootout winner against the Nashville Predators almost two weeks ago.

And history repeats itself because he would get the shootout winner in this hockey game as well.

Keith Kinkaid stopped 30 of 34 shots tonight while Mike Smith stopped 26 of 30 shots tonight. While he didn’t have one of his 40-save performance nights, he still came up strong and made some key saves in the game.

Next: The Flames bottom-six need to start producing

The Calgary Flames improve to 8-6-0 and they handed the Devils just their fourth loss of the season. With three wins against three strong teams, this home stance has been going exactly how everyone had hoped it would go.