Calgary Flames score with 16 seconds left to beat Anaheim Ducks

The Calgary Flames were looking to continue a strong week with another Pacific Division opponent. Let’s check out how this game went down.

After beating the LA Kings on Thursday evening, the Calgary Flames were looking to make it a successful week. With a win over the Anaheim Ducks tonight, they’d continue to close the gap between them and the Ducks and climb their way up the standings.

Heading into this game, the Ducks had 47 points in 42 games while the Flames had 44 points in 40 games. A win in regulation tonight would help the Flames a lot. They’re coming off a two-game win streak, dating back to 2017 on NYE. The Ducks, however, are coming off a loss vs. the Edmonton Oilers.

Let’s see how this game went down.

Related Story: Flames win first game of 2018 in comeback win vs. Kings

First period

The Calgary Flames came out with some good jump to start the game. They had more chances and weren’t letting the Ducks even get set up. At one point, Johnny Gaudreau had a nice little takeaway in the offensive zone that led to some pressure, he got the puck to Micheal Ferland, and Ferland made the game 1-0.

Ferland is second on the team in goals with 17 and has already surpassed a career-high of goals. Just 44 seconds later, captain Mark Giordano put the Flames on top some more, making it 2-0 with a puck that bounced off Kevin Bieksa‘s leg. What a sweet way to score a goal.

The Flames continued the pressure for most of the period. At one point, Mark Jankowski had a sneaky takeaway in the offensive zone when Anaheim thought they had space to clear the zone and that led to lots of chances on that one shift for that line.

The first period would end with the Flames leading 2-0 and outshooting the Ducks 17-8. At 5on5, the Flames completely outperformed the Ducks. They had 23 shot attempts compared to just seven for the Ducks and 10 scoring chances compared to the Ducks’ three.

Calgary Flames

Second period

The second period started with the same thing. The Calgary Flames came out strong while the Ducks were playing defence. There was a Flames powerplay, but we all know how this story goes, and there was no goal.

At one point, the Flames almost had a two-on-one breakaway with Mikael Backlund leading the way, but no goal. Gaudreau also almost had a breakaway, but Bieksa had to lift his stick and defend like it’s his job or something.

The second period was quite uneventful, until about the last minute. Derek Grant somewhat interfered with Mike Smith behind the net which Garnet Hathaway and Sam Bennett didn’t like. Hathaway fought Grant, then Sam Bennett and Josh Manson go at it too. They each got five-minute majors with Hathaway also getting an instigator against Grant, Grant got an interference penalty, and Hathaway also got a 10-minute misconduct. After the period was over, they were all still angry at each other at the benches.

In fact, Ryan Getzlaf got the stick out of Matthew Tkachuk‘s hands then said “go fetch” as he was getting off the ice. Oh boy, the third period was going to be fun.

While the Flames had a decent period, the Ducks had two powerplays and got some shots on that. They outshot the Flames 11-7 that period.

Third period

The third period started out with the penalty boxes looking like this:

Early in the period, Francois Beauchemin got a hi-stick call against Tkachuk and Tkachuk ended up bleeding. So a four-minute powerplay is what the Calgary Flames are getting! But wait.. maybe that isn’t a good thing…

And it wasn’t.

The Ducks took advantage of the Flames lacklustre powerplay and scored a shorthanded goal. They made it a one-goal game and we’ve got ourselves a close hockey game. On that four-minute powerplay for the Flames, they decided to actually start playing with about 20 seconds left of it. So not exactly a way to capitalize on the man advantage.

Less than a minute after the Flames powerplay ended, the Ducks came the other way and a slapper by their captain, Ryan Getzlaf, would make it a tie-game. Uh oh.

Andrew Mangiapane had a takeaway in the Ducks’ zone, which led to lots of pressure and resulted in a powerplay! But we all know how the Flames powerplay is.. so let’s not get too excited.

One more Flames powerplay was stressful enough, and while both teams came close, it seemed like this one was headed to overtime. But wait a minute, with about 20 seconds left in the game, the Flames are headed towards the Ducks zone. And credit to Dougie Hamilton for knowing when to jump up on the play, he went at the right time when he saw an opening and got into a perfect position, got the puck from Micheal Ferland and gave the Flames the 3-2 lead with just 16 seconds left of the game.

And this is what he did in the interview after the game ended:

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The Calgary Flames are now just one point back from the Ducks with two games on hand. They’re slowly but surely climbing their way up the standings. Hey, maybe that little outburst from Glen Gulutzan yesterday in practice worked.