Calgary Flames Game Recap: A Tale as Old as Time

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Calgary Flames were the better team in a hockey game but a lack of secondary scoring and getting “goalie’d” resulted in a regulation loss to their historic rivals, the Edmonton Oilers.

Period By Period

The Flames outplayed the Oilers in two of three periods, and this was confirmed both by the “eye test” and analytics. The Flames came out with some jump and scored the first two goals of the game, courtesy of our angel Matthew Tkachuk at 8:29 of the first and big man Milan Lucic on the power-play at 19:19 to finish the period.

In the second, two penalties resulted in consecutive Oilers’ PP goals from Evan Bouchard to tie the game at two. The Flames were sloppy for a period and it cost them. Incomplete breakouts, missed passes and lazy plays turned into opposition goals, as Brendan Perlini sniped his 4th of the year near the end of the second to make it a 3-2 game. Noah Hanifin floated a wrister past Koskinen to make it 3-3 going into the third.

The third is where the Flames shined, continuously out-chancing and outplaying Edmonton for minutes at a time. Koskinen had one of his best games of the season, including a ridiculous save on what was a sure goal by Dillon Dube.

The Flames dominated play but couldn’t pot a goal to save their lives, which, as it usually does, came back to bite them. With just under five minutes left in the third, Leon Draisaitl carried the puck into the zone for a 2-on-3. I’m not going to mince words when I say there was a deliberate interference call that was missed by officials as Jesse Puljujarvi took down Oliver Kylington to clear a path for Draisaitl to cut towards the net and pot his 27th goal of the year, which turned into the game-winner for the home side. He would score an empty netter as well to seal the deal in a 5-3 setback.

Final Analysis

What’s most frustrating is that Mikael Backlund was called for interference in the second, resulting in Edmonton tying the game at two. Too many mistakes and undisciplined play cost the Flame dearly, as it consistently has in the latest downturn. The Flames have also developed a new concerning trend of losing when they score first. 

Am I worried about the team?

In short, no. They still, other than intermittent patches, played excellent, with 57 CF% and 63.5 xGF% edge. If they play this way every night, they’ll win more than they lose.

It was a solid showing from a strong Flames team that’s going to need to play even better in a condensed February schedule that will likely decide their season. It’s also crucial to cut out the mistakes that are turning wins into losses.

The Flames take on the Blues next Monday night in the Saddledome at 7 pm MST.

All data pulled via NaturalStatTrick at http://www.naturalstattrick.com/