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Calgary Flames Roundtable: Late-season collapse

By Ramina Shlah

WINNIPEG, MB - APRIL 5: Nikolaj Ehlers #27 of the Winnipeg Jets raises his stick in celebration after teammate Paul Stastny #25 deflects the puck past goaltender Jon Gillies #32 of the Calgary Flames for a second period goal at the Bell MTS Place on April 5, 2018 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. (Photo by Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)
WINNIPEG, MB - APRIL 5: Nikolaj Ehlers #27 of the Winnipeg Jets raises his stick in celebration after teammate Paul Stastny #25 deflects the puck past goaltender Jon Gillies #32 of the Calgary Flames for a second period goal at the Bell MTS Place on April 5, 2018 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. (Photo by Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 11: A trainer tends to Mike Smith #41 of the Calgary Flames during the final moments of a 3-2 win against the New York Islanders at Barclays Center on February 11, 2018 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Paul Bereswill/NHLI via Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 11: A trainer tends to Mike Smith #41 of the Calgary Flames during the final moments of a 3-2 win against the New York Islanders at Barclays Center on February 11, 2018 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo by Paul Bereswill/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Question one: When do you think was the turning point for the Calgary Flames for them to sort of collapse and have those playoff hopes somewhat shattered?

Jonathan Boulanger

The obvious answer here is the Mike Smith injury, but I’m going to go in a different direction. The 3-1 loss at home against the lowly New York Rangers, where they had 51 shots and Brett Kulak scored the only goal. At that point, the slide had started but was very minor. They were expected to come in and easily take care of business against a rebuilding team whose management had clearly waved the white flag on the season. They egregiously outplayed the rangers and got some of the patented Calgary Flames poor goaltending to boot.

It was the ultimate deflation and spearheaded an ugly trend of not being able to put away teams and collect points that desperately needed to be collected. To me, the Flames never looked the same after that and would seemingly give up whenever they would be down in a game and wouldn’t be able to score. They would press and generate offense (without scoring) for five to ten solid minutes at a time and then the opposing team would score and the flames would throw in the towel. Always the same old story.

Ian Gustafson

The turning point was when Mike Smith went down. It seemed like the team was picking up momentum and when he went down the backups failed to pick up the slack.

Tomas Oppolzer

Mike Smith getting injured and David Rittich not being able to hold down the fort in his absence was definitely the start of the collapse. He went from one of the best back-ups in the NHL to a goalie who couldn’t stop a beach ball. Smith coming back and post horrible efforts in 4 of his first 5 games after returning definitely didn’t help either.

Related Story: Flames Daily - Mike Smith falling at the worst time

Benjamin Prokopy

The bye week. The Flames won seven consecutive games leading up to the league-mandated week off. Things were looking very good until the moment the puck dropped at their first game back on January 20th. That was the beginning of a six-loss run that included being crushed 7-4 at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

It was downhill(er) from there. Prior to the break, the team won about 55.5% of their games. Since then, it’s been a miserable 32%. Before the bye week, they converted on 18.4% of their PP attempts. After that, 12.8%. Ironically, their team possession numbers improved after the break. As did their PK%. Those were not enough to generate wins, however.

Dan Raicevich

Mike Smith’s injury. No doubt about it. The tandem of Rittich and Jon Gillies couldn’t provide that All-Star netminding that Smith was playing at. The Flames may or may not have rushed Smith back a little earlier than they should have as well, but his injury was a turning point for this season.

Ramina Shlah

I think there was a mix of all of these. Post-bye week, they just  collapsed for some reason. Then Mike Smith got injured at the worst time, and while David Rittich was one of the best backups, it’s clear he’s not ready to be an NHL starter. But for me, I think the ultimate collapse was the game against the San Jose Sharks where the Flames lost 7-4.

They had split the last two games when Smith returned and he cost them the game against the New York Islanders then stole the game against the Edmonton Oilers. Then he collapsed again against the Sharks and the Calgary Flames weren’t able to recover and that started a seven-game losing streak. When they faced the Sharks, they were still in the running and had a chance of making it. But after that game, that’s when the team, especially goaltending, had the biggest collapse.

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