Calgary Flames takeaways from loss to Coyotes: Back to old habits

Another game and another Calgary Flames loss. Let’s check out some takeaways from last night’s loss to the Arizona Coyotes.

Don’t worry guys, only two more games of having to suffer. The Calgary Flames lost to the Arizona Coyotes last night to lose eight in their last nine games. To be fair though, the Yotes have been incredible lately and have been quite good since the start of 2018. A lot of that success should be credited to Antti Raanta, who has now won his last seven games.

Let’s check out some takeaways from the 4-1 loss last night.

Back to old habits

Like in a lot of their losses, especially in the last few weeks, the Calgary Flames outshot and outplayed their opponent. In every period, the Flames had the edge. They outshot the Coyotes 43-21 and almost had double the amount of shot attempts (5v5), with 66 compared to the Yotes’ 37.

The Flames also had more scoring chances and more high-danger chances, but could only capitalize once. Stupid Raanta.

New players seem promising

Calgary Flames

This isn’t about all the new players. But Nick Shore and Spencer Foo seem promising. Shore finally got his first goal as a Flame last night and scored the lone Flames goal. He had four goals in 55 games previous to being acquired by the Flames. He now has one in seven games with the Flames.

But I’m not just talking about his goal. As GM Brad Treliving hinted at, the Flames are somewhat looking at a replacement for Matt Stajan. I love Stajan, but the fact is Shore is younger, faster, and better. I really like him as a fourth-line centre and he does everything right in that position, as I‘ve mentioned multiple times before.

Another player who’s been impressing is Spencer Foo. He has yet to get his first NHL goal, but in his two games so far, he’s looked good. In two games, he has eight shots, 10 shot attempts, and five hits. Last night, one of his shots went slightly wide and against the Edmonton Oilers, a pass coming his way that would have been a scoring opportunity was intercepted.

He looks good alongside Johnny Gaudreau and I’m just imagining a line of Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, and Foo. While he may not be ready for top line minutes at the NHL level just yet, he may have a full-time NHL job soon.

Indiscipline

The Calgary Flames, again, are showing to be indisciplined. Last night, they took four penalties, three in the first period alone. They were lucky to kill all four off and have been quite good at the penalty-kill this season. And while they’ve also been playing well at even-strength, it could be better if they were at even-strength more often.

We could all sit here and argue that lots of calls on the Flames have been questionable, but at the end of the day, that doesn’t matter.

Goaltending issue

In the last three weeks, the only time that goaltending has been good has been against the Oilers for some reason. And both games were by Mike Smith who basically stole those games. In the others though, he’s faltered. Last night, Jon Gillies allowed four goals on just 21 shots. Albeit, one deflected off of Rasmus Andersson and one changed directions before getting to him as well, but it still doesn’t cut it, unfortunately. While I do prefer David Rittich as a backup, we’ve seen that he can’t rise up to the occasion when he needs to be the starter, as we saw when Mike Smith got injured.

On that note, it’s hard to say whether Smith will still be here next year. He still has a year left on his contract, but if he continues this trend, the Calgary Flames will be in the same spot next year.

Next: Flames Daily - Game day, Kylington call-up

TLDR: The Flames got back to their old habits, Nick Shore and Spencer Foo have been good, the Flames need to stay out of the penalty box, and goaltending continues to be an issue.