Calgary Flames Daily: Getting shutout, back-to-back-games

After getting shutout last night to the Dallas Stars, the Calgary Flames will get an opportunity to recover tonight against the Colorado Avalanche.

It was a tough loss last night where the Calgary Flames were shutout by the Dallas Stars. It would be a little less disappointing if the Flames didn’t put up a good fight, but they played a great game, especially in the third period. Their inability to stay out of the penalty box and their inability to capitalize with the man-advantage was their downfall.

Although, they did play well on the PK and they did have some great scoring chances on the PP. But one PP goal against and one Ben Bishop in the way and the Flames lost 2-0. They put 37 shots on net and Bishop stopped them all.

Last night, the Flames had 18 high-danger chances at even-strength and another 10 on their 5on4 PP. They had even more on their 5on3 PP late in the first period. They just couldn’t seem to buy a goal, unfortunately. It was also Jon Gillies‘ third consecutive start and his first loss when starting in net. He let in one soft goal in the first period, but other than that, he made some great saves and stopped 24 of 26 shots.

Related Story: Flames cant figure out Ben Bishop, get shutout by Stars

Via Calgary Sun:

“It doesn’t matter if it’s your third start of the season or whatever, you never like to get outplayed like that from a goaltending perspective,” said Gillies in the losing locker room. “So I wish I could have come up with a couple more saves.“Bishop played really well. In a game like that where the chances are as lopsided as that, I really would have liked to have come up with a couple more saves to keep the game even, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”“Their goalie played an unbelievable game,” said Flames captain Mark Giordano, who fired a game-high seven shots on goal and had five others blocked by Bishop’s support staff. “We had a lot of looks, all of us. A lot of us had some Grade A scoring chances that we’d like to see go in the net.“I just thought even the ones he didn’t see tonight were hitting him and the rebounds were going to places where we couldn’t get to them. We have to find a way to score, that’s it. That was the difference.”“As good as (Bishop) was, we needed to get something on that five-on-three to get us going,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan after the defeat in Dallas. “What it did to their bench, with their crowd obviously recognizing a good kill, I thought they got a little energy from it. Our bench didn’t sag. But when you get out of a five-on-three, I know it gives the other team a boost.“We had some good looks … but nothing would go.”

Glen Gulutzan said it best: Nothing would go.

Something else that didn’t quite work last night was Chris Stewart. He started the game out on the top line and other than a good backhand pass to Sean Monahan that led to a scoring chance, he wasn’t effective. He was slow and is quite bad at battling for the puck if I’m being honest.

The Calgary Flames play again tonight against the Colorado Avalanche where we can probably assume that David Rittich will be starting in net tonight. The Flames and Avs will play for the second time in less than a week, where the Flames won 5-1 on Saturday. Let’s hope they can have the same kind of success again tonight because their playoff hopes are starting to slip out of their hands

Flames Tweet of the day

Hockey Tweet of the day

Some links surrounding the Flames

Flames fire blanks in shut out loss to Stars (Calgary Sun).

Ben Bishop makes 37 saves, Stars beat Flames (Sportsnet).

GameDay: Flames at Avalanche (Calgary Sun).

‘Nothing would go’: Flames shut out by Stars (Calgary Herald).

Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL

Report card grades for all 31 NHL teams at the trade deadline (FanSided).

3 things we learned in the NHL: New Bruins start producing (Sportsnet).

Over the Boards: Seattle taking nothing for granted on NHL bid (The Star).

Next: How the Flames fared at trade deadline

That’s all in today’s Flames Daily!