Calgary Flames Daily: Post-game loss, Garnet Hathaway called up

To add insult to injury, after a loss last night to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Calgary Flames will be without a veteran player as he’s been placed on IR.

In a disappointing loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last night, the Calgary Flames know they need to do way better. They lost a lot of battles vs. a strong offensive Leafs team. But they didn’t just lose the offensive battle, they also lost the defence battles.

Definitely not the way they were hoping to start their homestand. And head coach Glen Gulutzan thinks it’s a mentality issue, not necessarily a skill issue. Which is true. We’ve seen what this Flames team can do, and last night wasn’t a showing of it.

The Flames lost puck battles, they failed to clear their zone on multiple occasions that led to the Leafs scoring, and they didn’t have a lot of clean entries.

Calgary Flames

Via Calgary Sun:

“This is something I’m concerned with our hockey club — when there’s big games, we have a little bit of nervous energy,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan. “We need to overcome that in big hockey games, we didn’t really start to skate and move until we scored.“We have to find a different mental level — not the way we start games but when we approach big games.”“We’re trying to be a more consistent team,” said Flames veteran Mikael Backlund. “Of course we wanted to start off better at home, especially after winning last game on the road. But we’ll move on and, hopefully, get the next one.”“We didn’t capitalize on our chances,” Stone said. “We had a few bad breaks off some guys, we had a good team coming in here, and it was a big game to get up for — I wouldn’t blame the road trip (fatigue). They’re a good team, and we didn’t establish enough offensive-zone time.”

To add insult to injury, Kris Versteeg has been placed on IR this morning. After missing a few games with an undisclosed lower-body injury, he’s finally out as of this morning.

“Without Steeger, you could tell we were a little out of sync,” Gulutzan said.

On the bright side, Garnet Hathaway will finally get a chance at the NHL level again since he’s been recalled from Stockton. It wasn’t that big of a surprise to many, but it was still somewhat of a let-down. Many people don’t think that Hathaway is the answer right now. He may have physicality, but the bottom-six is struggling with scoring. And Hathaway isn’t exactly bringing something new to that scoring-depth.

However, he is having quite a good season so far in Stockton and much better than it went last season. He’s up to 11 goals in 18 goals and he’s projecting to achieve a career-high in goals this season. He hasn’t even hit 11 goals since his first full season in the AHL in 2014-15.

Via Calgary Flames:

“I think he deserves it,” said Jankowski. “He earned this call-up with his play. I played with him a lot in the last couple of years so I know him pretty well. He’s a hard-nosed player, he’s hard on the forecheck, he takes the body and he can make plays when he has the puck, so he’s going to be a real help for our team.”“Anywhere he’ll play he’s going to be a factor,” said Jankowski. “That’s the good thing about him – he can be a factor on any line, he can play with anyone.”

Flames Tweet of the day

Hockey Tweet of the day

Some links surrounding the Flames

Flames Thoughts: Maple Leafs give Calgary a rough homecoming (Sportsnet).

Flames struck down by visiting Maple Leafs (Calgary Sun).

Calgary Flames help Fernie residents recover from deadly arena tragedy (Global News).

Flames GM talks Gaudreau’s emerging star, Jagr’s influence, and backup goalies (Sportsnet).

Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL

NHL should award three points in every game (Mile High Sticking).

Canada’s Olympic men’s hockey roster wide open (Toronto Star).

IIHF SAYS COMPLETE BAN OF RUSSIAN OLYMPIANS WOULD PUT ‘HEALTH OF HOCKEY AT RISK’ (The Hockey News).

Mailbag: Choosing All-Star teams from each division (NHL.com).

Next: Three stars of the week Nov. 20-26

That’s all in today’s Calgary Flames Daily!