A good bartender gets a lot of use out of his trusty blender.
An artist, the mixologist surveys the inventory behind the wood before choosing on a few ingredients that he is sure will come together making for the tastiest of cocktails.
Bill Peters isn’t all that different from Tom Cruise in the tropics. No you won’t see a bottle flip, hokey dialogue, or bikini clad babes, but you will see concoctions of hockey players tossed together in order to change the pallet of a hockey game and hopefully come up with a win.
The Flames locked in a tight checking 1-1 tie in the Twin Cities, were blendered for the third period, a move that resulted in one new look scoring the game winner as the Flames hold on under the great goaltending of David Rittich to snare a 2-1 victory.
Coughlin’s Law: “Drink or be gone”
Line Up Changes
I’m not a tough guy advocate, I think the role is all but gone in today’s game. But if you’re going to insist on dressing a guy known more for fighting then playing hockey Bill Peters found a pretty good way to do it.
Dalton Prout enters the game, but not in place of one of the Swedish rookies. Instead they dress 7 defenseman and scratch a fourth line winger in Austin Czarnik; the 7th different reason Czarnik has been benched this year.
They may not need Prout, but in a game that has that escalation potential given the Backund injury, the Koivu injury and Giordano suspension it’s best to have a deterrent in case things go crazy.
The only other noticeable change was in net, where David Rittich gets the start, a given with Mike Smith’s injury, but also expected with Rittich cleaning up the Philly game with a win.
Mark Does It All
Can’t imagine the average Wild fan was happy to see public enemy number one, Mark Giordano, score a short handed goal in the first period, and then more than hold his own in a fight with Matt Hendricks.
The guy just does everything.
Led all skaters with 25 minutes, and was his usual noticeable self including to the Minnesota bench that seemed to be chirping him with every opportunity (“Watch your knee!”).
Two games back from suspension, two short handed goals.
Give him the Norris now.
Neal Clangs Iron
Another guy that stood out for good reasons tonight was James Neal.
Good on the cycle, good in his own zone, and more physical than we’ve seen in most games this season; he seemed to be into the game with the bad blood between the two franchises.
Late in the second he was set up by Mark Jankowski on a turnover, but pounded the puck off the near side iron. In the third period he snapped a 5 week pointless streak in setting up Matthew Tkachuk for the game winner.
First Period Fights
More often than not an anticipated game between two teams that had an incident filled affair earlier on the calendar almost always ends up being a let down.
A week ago the Flames and Oilers met up in Edmonton and the follow up game to the barn burner at the Saddledome was more or less a dud.
This afternoon though the Wild and Flames made it clear that wouldn’t be the case. Matthew Tkachuk got Matt Dumba to drop the gloves on the game’s second shift; a quiet bout that ended with Dumba leaving the game with a sore hand.
Later the Wild did pretty much the same thing when Matt Hendricks tussled with Mark Giordano, Calgary’s captain more than ready and probably getting the edge in the fight.
Then late in the period a physical shift by the second line resulted in Sam Bennett bloodying the nose of Minnesota captain Ryan Suter.
Peters Pulls the Strings
Has to be a great internal motivational factor in hockey games … that is Bill Peters “third period nine”.
If the Flames are down he’s almost always going to drop to nine forwards, but sometimes like the case today he’ll do it in tie games if he doesn’t like the feel from his group. Today that was the case with the 11 forwards being chipped down to nine with Andrew Mangiapane and Derek Ryan sitting, and three new lines born.
The result was a new fangled second line goal and a victory, so you have to hand it to the coach.
What was interesting was seeing the trade off of diminishing the first line a smidge in order to boost a second look. James Neal wasn’t a good fit with Mikael Backlund and Matthew Tkachuk this year, but the unit looked solid with Elias Lindholm centering the wingers … Tkachuk of course scoring the game winner.
The top line was still pretty effective in generating chances with Sam Bennett filling in for Lindholm with Monahan and Gaudreau. The final three players to see ice were Mark Jankowksi between Alan Quine and Garnet Hathaway.
Big Save Dave
The Flames played a solid road game. They only gave up eight high danger chances five on five all night, but the team just didn’t generate a whole lot compared to what we’re used to. With that you get a low scoring game and the need for your goaltender to be almost perfect, and Rittich was stopping 35 of 36 shots; his only blemish a fluke goal off the skate of Oliver Kylington.
With Smith hurt, there is little doubt we will see Rittich again tomorrow afternoon in St. Louis.
Standings Implications
The win moves the Flames to 21-10-2, good for 44 points in 32 games and second in the conference. The Jets have the same number of points, but have played one less game. They sit a point up on the Nashville Predators who have a game in hand as well.
In the Pacific the Flames have a five point lead on the Sharks, Ducks and Oilers with all four teams having played 33 games. The division has been crazy of late with the Flames and Oilers each going 8-1-1 in their last ten, the Ducks 8-2-0 and the Knights 7-2-1.
Fancy Stats
The Flames finished under water on the night with 48% of the five on five shot attempts with period splits of 30% / 59% and 52%. They did recover from a tough start. The scoring chances were 17-16 Minnesota; the high danger chances 8-5 Wild.
In all situations the Flames had 48% of the shot attempts, 50% of the scoring chances and 44% of the high danger attempts. Calgary had three powerplays to Minnesota’s four.
Individually the Flames were led by Matthew Tkachuk at 64%, Sam Bennett and Alan Quine at 60%. Other guys over 50% included Lindholm at 56% and Rasmus Andersson at 54%. At the other end four players finished under the 40% mark, two of which basically didn’t see the ice in the third period in Mangiapane (33%) and Derek Ryan (20%). The other two culprits were Garnet Hathaway 30%, and Mark Jankowski 32%.
