Calgary Flames come back from two-goal deficit, win in OT vs. Avalanche

The Calgary Flames finished off their three-game road trip against the Colorado Avalanche tonight in perfect Flames fashion.

Well, tonight was fun, right? The Calgary Flames finished off their three-game road trip tonight in Denver against the Colorado Avalanche – a team that has yet to lose on home-ice this season. And the Flames did it in perfect Flames fashion!

They were down 2-0 early in the game, came back with a goal late, and finished it in OT. Oh, how I’ve missed these Flames. Let’s check out how they got here.

First period

Right off the faceoff, the Avalanche were aggressive on the forecheck. Mikko Rantanen had a backhand shot and credit to Nathan MacKinnon who knew exactly where to go for the rebound. 11 seconds, it’s 1-0 Avs.

A couple minutes later, a pass back intended for TJ Brodie took a weird bounce, bounced over his stick, and JT Compher was right there to put it past David Rittich. 2-0 just 2:40 into the game meaning Bill Peters needed to take a timeout.

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About a minute later, Austin Czarnik shot it on the net and the rebound went right to the tape of Sean Monahan who basically had an open net, but his stick was tied up and he couldn’t get a shot.

After that, the period slowed down a little until the Flames took a penalty 13-minute mark. The Avs had a great powerplay and probably could have made it 3-0 at this point. They had six shot attempts and two scoring chances, but thankfully, this game remained 2-0.

A few minutes later, the Flames would get their chance on the powerplay. A powerplay that somewhat died down a little in the last game. However, this PP was decent, they had four shots and one scoring chance. They had somewhat of push back at the end of the period, but this period finished 2-0 for the Avs.

The Avs outshot the Calgary Flames 16-10 and badly outplayed the Flames at even-strength. They outshot them 14-6, out-chanced them 12-7, with high-danger chances 7-2 in favour of the Avs. On to the second period.

Second period

The second period started with Bill Peters juggling the lines a little bit, something he has not been shy of doing. Matthew Tkachuk was put on the first line while Mikael Backlund was playing on a line with Sam Bennett and James Neal and Elias Lindholm was playing with Dillon Dube and Austin Czarnik. The fourth line stayed intact.

After some sustained pressure by the Avs in the Calgary Flames zone, in an attempt to finally clear the puck, it went straight over the glass meaning another powerplay for the Avs. Much like the first one, this one was quite good as well, but Rittich has seemed to get more comfortable after those initial two goals. The Avs had three scoring chances on that PP, two of which were high-danger chances.

From the end of their penalty-kill, until the Avs took a penalty about six minutes later, it was all Flames. So much so that Sam Bennett finally got his first goal of the season, after two previous times that he somewhat got jipped of. Nobody could believe this wasn’t waived off. It’s now a 2-1 game.

The Flames then went on the powerplay where they had some excellent chances. One specifically coming from a tic-tac-toe play from Elias Lindholm to Johnny Gaudreau to Matthew Tkachuk who got robbed by Semyon Varlamov.

The Flames went on another powerplay a few minutes later and had some other great looks, especially in the dying seconds of the PP and when it expired, but no goal. At one point, the Flames were outshooting the Avs 12-1.

This period finished 2-1 for the Avs, but the Flames definitely came out strong. They outshot the Avs 17-6 that period and completely dominated at even-strength, having double the amount of shot-attempts the Avs had (19-8). They also doubled their scoring chances (6-3) and didn’t let the Avs get a single high-danger attempt.

Let’s head to the third period.

Third period

Right after the initial faceoff of this period, the Avs had an early chance, but a save from Rittich. Right after, the Calgary Flames went down the ice and most of the momentum was from them. Early in the period, Gaudreau fooled Varlamov with a wrap-around which he thought was a goal, but the ref right away said it didn’t cross the line.

The Flames pushed hard throughout this entire period and were the clear dominating team. The Avs even had a powerplay at the seven-minute mark and, not even that they couldn’t get any shots or shot-attempts, the Flames had a short-handed chance.

Later in the period, the Flames went on the powerplay with a perfect opportunity to tie the game. And although they tried and had a scoring chance, they couldn’t make it a 2-2 game.

Near the end of the period when the Flames took out the extra attacker, James Neal did a good job of stealing the puck in the offensive zone which in turn, kept the Flames from going offside, and Elias Lindholm found the puck and lasered it in. We’ve got a tie game, so this one needs overtime.

The Flames outshot the Avs 12-3 that period and outshot them 29-9 through the final two periods of the game.

OT

Not even a minute into OT, Mr. Overtime, Johnny Hockey himself, one of the best players in OT in the game today, was waiting for a pass from his linemate Sean Monahan. Gaudreau goes on the breakaway and, in my head, I was thinking “Johnny never scores on the breakaway.”

But he proved me wrong! He beat Varlamov five-hole and the Flames win this one in OT after being down 2-0.

Hey, at least David Rittich knew it would be a good goal!

Other than the first few minutes of the game, this one belonged to the Calgary Flames. If the Avalanche won because of those two goals they got in the first 2:40 of the hockey game, it would have been quite disappointing seeing how hard the Flames worked afterwards to get it back.

Gaudreau now has eight points through five games. Not too shabby, hey?

2/3 on this roadie ain’t so bad either.