Calgary Flames top Bruins 5-2 as Juuso Valimaki records first NHL goal

The Calgary Flames started a two-game home stretch against the Boston Bruins tonight where they won 5-2 with Juuso Valimaki recording his first NHL goal.

What a game, hey? The Calgary Flames came out strong against the Boston Bruins tonight. They’re now 2-0-0 at home this season and 4-2-0 on the season. Perfect score on weed legalization day, right?

Not only did they win 5-2, but rookie defenceman Juuso Valimaki also recorded his first NHL goal, Johnny Gaudreau got his 100th NHL goal, and Micheal Frolik had two goals and was the first star of the game, after being a healthy scratch.

Let’s check out how the Flames got here.

First period

A couple minutes into the period, the Bruins already had some good chances and Mike Smith had to be sharp. Less than three minutes in and the Bruins already had four shots. Right after, Michael Frolik went down with the puck with Mikael Backlund on his left side, passed it over to Backlund who was stopped by Tuukka Rask.

A few minutes later, Matthew Tkachuk went down alone with the puck, took an extra second to turn around and look around, and got it over to Backlund. It was clear that Rask thought Backlund was going to shoot, went too far out of his net, Backlund got it over to Frolik, and it’s 1-0! That goal was definitely made by Tkachuk and the 3M line reuniting feels great right now.

Right after, the Bruins went down with a good chance and Mike Smith got rid of the five-hole attempt at the last second to keep it 1-0.

With less than five to go, the Calgary Flames first line was out with a chance. Noah Hanifin shot it and Rask gave up a bad rebound, easy for Sean Monahan to find who slid it over to Johnny Gaudreau and it’s now 2-0. That’s now Gaudreau’s 100th career goal!

Less than a minute later, rookie defenceman Juuso Valimaki shot what looked like a fairly innocent shot from the blue-line, it took a weird bounce off Rask’s glove and went into the net. That’s Valimaki’s first NHL goal!

Probably not the best idea to keep Tuukka Rask starting in my fantasy pool tonight…

Right after, David Pastrnak, a player with seven goals already, was down with his line and looked like he scored and got the Bruins back in the game. However, Bill Peters challenged the goal for offside. And what do you know, it looks like he’s better at these than Glen Gulutzan. The call was overturned and the Flames kept their 3-0 lead.

This was a fun period with some end-to-end action. The Flames outshot the Bruins 14-10, but other than the score, the game was quite evenly played at even-strength with quality scoring chances from both sides.

Second period

The Calgary Flames started the second period on a powerplay since the Bruins took a late penalty. Just 24 seconds into the period, Patrice Bergeron high-sticked Mark Giordano so the Flames would get a 5on3 for a little over a minute.

The Flames set it up a little at first, but a few fans on some shots, and they couldn’t quite get a good chance. Once the first powerplay expired, the Flames couldn’t even get anything going for the remainder of the powerplay, so this would go scoreless.

After Bergeron left the penalty box, he stayed on the ice and managed to cut the Flames lead.

As Robin Scherbatsky from How I Met Your Mother would say, nobody asked you, Patrice.

Not to worry though, because less than a minute later, the 3M line is in the offensive zone again and Backlund spots Frolik who easily gets it past Rask. That’s now 4-1 Flames and Frolik’s second goal of the night! Pretty good for a guy who was just a healthy scratch, hey?

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Shortly after, the Flames took their first penalty of the night and they had an excellent penalty-kill. They had two shorthanded breakaways, the first from Elias Lindholm who waited and tried to sneak it past Rask. Right after, Frolik got a shorthanded chance with everyone in the stands cheering him on, but he shot it just slightly too high.

The Calgary Flames then went on the powerplay shortly after that, but their PK looked better than their PP, so no goal there either.

After that, it looked like the Bruins were pressing quite a bit and it paid off. Bergeron has a nice feed over to Brad Marchand who had a quick release past Mike Smith. Flames lead 4-2, but would now go on the penalty-kill.

The Bruins had one good scoring chance from, of course, David Pastrnak, but Mike Smith noticed him on the side and was ready for it. The Flames killed off another penalty.

With about a minute left, the Flames took yet another penalty, which they successfully killed off, so they’ll start the third period on the PK. Then right at the end of the period, the Flames took another penalty, so they’ll actually have a 5on3 penalty to kill.

Third period

The Calgary Flames started the third period with a successful 5on3 penalty-kill. In fact, the Bruins barely even got a good chance, the only one was from David Pastrnak that hit the outside of the post.

The rest of the period was quite back and forth between both teams, but the Bruins were pressing hard and were getting some good shifts in the offensive zone.

The Flames had another powerplay this period, but they couldn’t capitalize, now going 0/4 on the PP tonight. The reason the Flames went on the PP was due to an interference call on Johnny Gaudreau from Charlie McAvoy. However, after watching a reply, it looked more like an elbow to the head, and Gaudreau went down to the boards hard.

Gaudreau left the bench shortly after this play because of the league’s concussion-spotters. The Flames have yet to give a statement about Gaudreau’s condition so we’ll most likely find out tomorrow or Friday since the Flames won’t have a practice tomorrow.

Add an empty-net goal from Matthew Tkachuk at the end of this period and the Flames won 5-2. While the Bruins pushed back, the Flames played a decent defensive game in the last few minutes of the game to not give the Bruins the opportunity to set up.

I guess if you’re Michael Frolik, you just proved why you shouldn’t be a healthy scratch, right?