Calgary Flames Daily: Defeating a strong competitor

The Calgary Flames are on a high after defeating a strong competitor last night. They have just one more game tomorrow night before their Christmas break.

A strong third period brought the Calgary Flames over the St. Louis Blues. A strong competitor, yet the Flames have been quite good against them in their last six games. The Flames took the season series with this win, going 2-1-0 against the Blues this year.

The Flames are now on a two-game win streak and they also finally won another game on home-ice. They’ve been struggling at home and while they were 17-4-3 heading into this game, they were two games below 500 at home. This was only their second win out of six games at home in the month of December.

This was a much-needed win and a confidence booster against a strong Blues team. Dougie Hamilton got the game-winning goal in the third period with a nice screen from Garnet Hathaway in front of Carter Hutton.

Calgary Flames

Via Calgary Sun:

“One, (Hathaway) is hard to play against every shift,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan. “He doesn’t take a shift off. Every shift, he plays like his last. He’s physical, you saw the hit on a top player in the league. The goal? He went straight to the net.“It was Dougie’s goal, and Dougie was in a good spot. But you’ve got a guy standing in front and the goalie can’t see … (Hathaway) does the little things that, unless you’re watching closely, you may not notice.”“I thought a shot was coming, and I went to the slot to see what would come from it,” said Dougie Hamilton. “(The puck) bounced out, and I just whacked it.“I didn’t know what the goalie was doing or what was going on there. It was just nice to have that go in and get the two points.”

Something else that happened last night is Travis Hamonic took a weird hit to his leg and we don’t know if he moved it weirdly or not, but he was out for the rest of the game. We have no idea if this is an injury that’s going to keep him out of the lineup or if he’ll be in tomorrow night. The Calgary Flames may give him the night off tomorrow and have him well rested for the next week until they play again next Thursday.

EDIT: Derek Wills just tweeted this out, so this is a good indication that he’ll most likely be out tomorrow.

And speaking of Hamonic, he recently launched a new initiative called the Northern Project. He’ll be bringing in Indigenous families from the Northern provinces and giving them five-star treatment while they get to enjoy some Flames hockey. The first family he brought over was this past weekend.

Related Story: Flames Daily - Hamonic's new project

Via CTV News:

“My heritage is something that I hold really close to me. Being Metis myself, you want to be able to help,” Hamonic told CTV News. “My wife Steph and I decided that was something really important to us, to try to help and give back.”“It’s been awesome. I haven’t been able to wipe the smile off my face,” Hamonic said. “We’re going to do one (family) from each northern territory this season, and hopefully we’ll keep going.”

Hamonic’s such a good guy. When I grow up, I want to be like Travis Hamonic.

Flames Tweet of the day

Hockey Tweet of the day

Some links surrounding the Flames

Flames thoughts: Calgary impresses against big-time competition (Sportsnet).

Dougie Hamilton gives Calgary Flames 2-1 win over St. Louis Blues (The Globe and Mail).

Flames hit high note to beat Blues (Calgary Sun).

Flames player treats northern Indigenous family to NHL experience (CTV News).

Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL

Each NHL team’s best fighter of all-time (FanSided).

3 things we learned in the NHL: Flyers get back on the nice list (Sportsnet).

Ed Willes: Keep passports handy if you want to see NHL’s newest teams (The Province).

Former hockey fighters to struggling ex-NHL enforcer: ‘you’re not alone’ (CBC News).

Next: Is Versteeg's absence why Gaudreau's hit a slump?

That’s all in today’s Flames Daily!