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Line Up Changes
The big change to the lineup from the loss in Anaheim came in goal of course with David Rittich making the starts ahead of struggling starter Mike Smith. The Flames continued their astute form of defensive hockey, but with Rittich on top of his game the team didn’t surrender any weak goals as Rittich manged his first shut out in his young career.
The only other change came on the fourth line with Garnet Hathaway coming back into the lineup in place of Anthony Peluso. Not sure what the role of the scrapper or scrappy player is in today’s game, but it would be hard to argue that Hathaway was more effective than anything we’ve seen from Peluso this season.
Shoot the Puck
Calgary’s top line; Sean Monahan between Johnny Gaudreau and Elias Lindholm, certainly got their chances against the Kings, but more often than not chose the extra pass instead of the shot on numerous occasions. With the way they started the game they should have been adding to the fortunate Travis Hamonic goal instead of whiffing on four way passing plays and keeping the Kings in the game.
If some of those chances hit twine, they’d be plays of the week, but with the shots that line has in their repertoire the Flames need more actual shots and less could have beens.
Hamonic Powers Up
Travis Hamonic looked good in the preseason on a pairing with Noah Hanifin. He looked good for half a game in Vancouver before breaking his jaw on opening night. He’s looked very good since returning from the injury with his pseudo football helmet in tow. Tonight, however, Travis Hamonic took his game to another level, probably a level we haven’t seen in a Calgary uniform with a 200 foot game that was easily his best in Calgary silks.
He scored the game’s only goal, he broke up three what looked like sure goals for the Kings with active sticks, he was physical, he gave Illya Kovalchuk nightmares, and he came to the aid of his teammate when Sam Bennett got into one of his multiple scrums on the night.
If this is the Travis Hamonic, or at least something close to this model, is what Calgary fans can expect to see, the conversation will quickly move from a trade that Brad Treliving would like to have back to a possible extension for the right handed defender.
It’s not the version we expected to see three years ago, but the Flames may finally have a top four that can shut down an opposing team’s offence.
Kings Are In Trouble
How do you fix the L.A. Kings if you’re Rob Blake?
Ten players over the age of 30, and seven of them on long term contracts with big pay cheques. Add in injuries and you have a general manager that needs to get younger, but without assets attractive enough to have a fire sale.
Firing the coach was likely more of a job saving move for Blake than an actual change of direction.
Kopitar and Doughty are still elite hockey players, but what is the value of an oft injured Johnathan Quick, or Jeff Carter, or Dustin Brown, or Dion Phaneuf?
Yikes.
Players Going To War
The Flames are a quick team, young up front, and not that physical.
Yesterday a quote from Bill Peters suggested they need to work on being more physical and that you’d see that on this California road trip. But are they built to play that kind of hockey?
“We need a little more physicality to our game, we’ll fix that moving forward throughout the rest of our California trip. Obviously that’s something that’s got to be a staple of our game.”
Do they have a roster for that kind of hockey?
Last night Garnet Hathaway was at his best causing havoc on almost every single shift. He was aptly joined by Sam Bennett who simply loved the heavy game that the Kings were efforting to drag the Flames into. Travis Hamonic will always be there when you need him physically. I’d imagine when the chips are down you can always count on Mark Giordano to show up in a snarl. James Neal never met a face wash he didn’t like.
But other than that is this a roster that can or should amp up physical play?
Or did he mean he’d like to see his physical players play more physical?
Third Line Driving Play
What a night for the recently formed third line with Derek Ryan centering Sam Bennett and Michael Frolik.
The line was easily Calgary’s best in terms of generating zone time, chances and then additionally getting the lion’s share of the minutes against the King’s Kovalchuk line and shutting them down.
What the line doesn’t seem to have though, is finish … as they had seven high danger scoring chances (giving up two) but failing to convert on any of these above brow efforts.
It’s been Sam Bennett’s MO all season, and like the player the line may not have the shooting skills to convert what they create, but at least it’s a third line causing havoc, creating chances, wearing out defenders, and keeping momentum for the first and second line.
Backlund Line Broken?
Which brings us to the second line …
With the top line starting well but over passing, and the third line creating but also shutting down the King’s most dangerous weapons, it should have been a night that the revamped 3M line went to town and drove a steak through the former contender’s collective heart.
They didn’t.
The James Neal on the 3M line experiment came up empty again on the scoresheet, but unlike the Ducks’ game where the Flames trailed and poured it on, they had trouble generating anything, showing the worst shot metrics of any Calgary players. Their assignment was the Trevor Lewis line and they should have made hay, but didn’t generate a single scoring chance.
I think this line is the logical home for James Neal with Elias Lindholm literally pouring a basement for a permanent home on the top line, and perhaps they’ll figure it out with time. But last night was a complete swing and a miss in a game where some insurance might have been nice.
Goalie Plan Moving Forward
Earlier in the season the Flames had a plan to play David Rittich in St. Louis, but altered the plan when Mike Smith pitched a shut out in Nashville.
So it’s entirely possible they could use the same logic and detour from the stated plan of playing a rested goalie in each half of the back to backs in California this weekend; and go with Rittich and his hot hand again tonight.
The Flames don’t play again until Thursday, and hadn’t played since last Wednesday until last night so it’s hard to argue either goaltender is worn out and unable to go; especially when you consider the proximity for the travel.
The Shark Tank is a tough place to play for any goaltender, let alone one struggling to find his game.
Third Period Reffing
I don’t like to complain about officiating, but I thought the tail end of the game was a marked departure from how the game was called through two and a half periods.
It was an ugly angry hockey game where they largely let things go, but then suddenly Clifford is picked out for a minor, Valimaki and Lindholm get nabbed for late calls and the game changes. Add in the fact that the Kings were picking, grabbing and hooking everyone in desperation to tie the game but allowed to do so just didn’t seem like a consistent way to finish a game after suddenly being whistle happy for ten minutes.
Fancy Stats
The Flames didn’t give the Kings a whole lot in 60 minutes, with a stretch in the latter half of the first period, and first chunk of the second being LA’s only prolonged pressure. So it comes as no surprise that the Flames had 55% of the shot attempts on period splits of 47% / 59% and 55% – somewhat impressive since they effectively led the entire hockey game. The Flames also had 55% of the scoring chances and 63% of the high danger chances including 60% and 67% respectively in the third period with the home team looking to tie things up.
In all situations (the Kings had three powerplays to one Calgary), the Flames had 52% of the shot attempts, 54% of the scoring chances and 55% of the high danger chances.
Individually, the Flames were led by the bottom half of their roster or their depth when it came to shot metrics. The third line and the second defense pairing posted numbers in the low 70s or high 60s, a huge factor in the Flames win. The fourth line had a good night as well posting numbers in the low 60s. The 3M line (can’t really call it that without Frolik) got filled in however posting numbers in the 30s along with the top pairing who were only a smidge less guilty of getting pinned.
Standings Look
The win moves the Flames a point closer to the Canucks (that just doesn’t look right), who picked up a loser point in Buffalo in a late game collapse. Calgary has a 10-6-1 record good for 21 points in 17 games. Its starting to become some decent separation in the standings as West bubble teams are now in and around the +1 game over .500 range, creating some breathing room.
League wide the Flames at .618 are the 7th ranked team in terms of win percentage as the season moves into mid November and towards that American Thanksgiving turnstile.
