Calgary Flames score five straight goals, win 5-2 against Coyotes

The Calgary Flames need as many wins as possible as they find themselves out of a playoff spot again. They’ll try tonight vs. the Arizona Coyotes.

The Calgary Flames are in a bit of a pickle right now. They’ve now lost three in a row and lost 7-3 last night to the Vegas Golden Knights. Yikes. Mix that with Team Canada Women’s hockey losing the Gold Medal game in a shootout against USA… last night wasn’t a good hockey night.

But it’s a new day! They’ll be playing the Arizona Coyotes to hopefully climb up the standings again. While the Yotes are the last team in the Western Conference and are 99.9% not making the playoffs, they’re also on a four-game win streak.

The Flames will be seeing some lineup changes tonight. Jon Gillies will be starting his first game of the season with Mike Smith still nursing a lower-body injury. Sam Bennett will also find himself on the first line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan in replacement of Micheal Ferland. The Flames haven’t gotten an even-strength goal in seven games, so the Flames are trying to get something going here.

Gaudreau is also on a 12-game road point streak and is tied for second in the NHL scoring with 70 points.

All that being said, let’s check out the game tonight.

Calgary Flames

First period

The Calgary Flames started the period out exactly how you would expect. The top line featuring Sam Bennett had a bad giveaway which led to an early Coyotes goal. An early goal against? On the Flames? Hm, sounds odd. That sure doesn’t happen often. This was the eighth straight game that the Flames got scored on first.

Before that goal though, Johnny Gaudreau took a high stick to the face from Bennett and ended up losing a tooth. Ouch.

But Bennett got some redemption. Later in the period, Bennett scored with a nice feed from Gaudreau, who is now on a 13-game road point streak. I guess putting him on that top line was a good idea. This was the first even-strength goal by the Flames in seven games.

During the period, Zac Rinaldo had quite a dirty hit on an unsuspecting Matt Stajan who was down on the ice. This hit went undetected by the refs and by most of the players. A few minutes later, after the Flames tied up the game, Ferland went after Rinaldo and they battled it out.

Shortly after, the top line does it again. Johnny Gaudreau fooled Antti Raanta and gave the Flames a 2-1 lead. I guess putting Bennett on that top line was a good decision. Maybe Johnny should lose teeth more often.

The Flames took a penalty later in the period, but the Coyotes couldn’t quite set up effectively and had no shots. Shortly after it ended, the Flames went on another penalty late in the period. They successfully killed it off but will start the second period on the penalty-kill.

Second period

The Coyotes won the faceoff and had two good shots on their PP at the start of the period but Gillies seemed to gain some confidence since the first period. Except for those two initial shots, the Coyotes didn’t get any other chance.

Later, it seemed like Mikael Backlund got a goal with a good feed from Michael Frolik who spot him, but after further review, it was deemed that the puck was deflected in by a high-stick so no goal. It’s still a 2-1 game.

A few minutes later in the period, the Calgary Flames were on a powerplay. Gaudreau spot Dougie Hamilton who spot Monahan by the net, tic tac toe, and we’ve got another powerplay goal and another Gaudreau point tonight.

Later in the period, the Flames took yet another penalty, which was somewhat questionable of a call, but so be it. While the Coyotes had decent passing sequences, they couldn’t quite set anything up. We’re still at a two-goal game.

This period finished with the Flames leading 3-1. The Coyotes are outshooting the Flames 22-21 at this point. Let’s head to the final frame.

Third period

The Calgary Flames took a penalty (surprise surprise) less than four minutes into the period. While on the powerplay, the Coyotes hit the post, then Alex Goligoski missed a pass and the zone cleared to which Mark Jankowski took advantage of and scored shorthanded. When Jankowski scores, the Flames are 8-0-0 (*crosses fingers*).

Later in the period, the Flames went down the ice. Tkachuk and Dougie were playing some give and go before Tkachuk found the back of the net. We’ve now got a four-goal lead. That’s now five unanswered goals for the Flames.

Late in the game, the Coyotes managed to get another one past Jon Gillies with a deflection off Travis Hamonic’s skate. While this isn’t fun, it also means that Monahan will get the game-winning goal. He now has 11 GWG and is just one shy of tying a Flames franchise record of 12 in a season, which was set by Joe Mullen in 1987.

Flames win this one 5-2, outshot the Coyotes 38-37 which means Gillies stops 35 of 37 shots in his first start this season and his first NHL win!

Post-game thoughts

Top line looks good with Bennett

I know it’s only one game, but boy did that top line look good with Sam Bennett there. They scored three goals and had a combined total of seven points tonight. While I’m a huge Micheal Ferland fan and think he’s still an underrated player, he can be inconsistent. I’d say to keep riding this line as long as they stay hot.

Matthew Tkachuk stays hot

The little pest has been one of the Flames best goal scorers as of late. He scored his 24th goal of the season tonight and continues to look good for the Flames, especially on the powerplay. He had eight goals before Jan. 1st and 16 since. The only other player who has more than him since Jan. 1st is Evgeni Malkin with 19. He’s now on a five-game point streak with four goals and six points in that stretch. He’s also on a three-game goal streak.

Powerplay continues to look good

Even when the Calgary Flames aren’t scoring powerplay goals, their powerplay has still looked great as of late. Especially Dougie Hamilton and Matthew Tkachuk. Putting Dougie on that top unit has been one of the best decisions the Flames have made this season. I mean, it only took Twitter yelling at them for months to do so for them to finally try it out, but better late than never I guess.

I keep mentioning this, but Tkachuk is so good right in front of the goalie and Dougie’s wrist shots are so good from within the faceoff circle. The Flames went 1/4 on the PP tonight.

Next: Flames powerplay heading in the right direction

A great win for the Flames and an overall great game played by the club. On to the next one.