Hockey fans know a trap game when they see one.
A successful road trip followed by a game against the Minnesota Wild on home ice is already a recipe for disaster, but thrown in a long retirement ceremony in front of it and you just knew it would at least be a challenging night, and perhaps a complete mess.
Things were rolling along pretty well for the most part through 40 minutes. The Wild had scored on their only scoring chance and the Flames were carrying the play, but failing to convert on numerous chances sending the game to the third knotted at one.
Then a Mike Smith mistake puts the game on it’s ear, and just like that the Flames had soiled Jarome Iginla’s big night with a 4-2 home ice loss.
Line Up Changes
Mike Smith back to the nets was the lone change from the previous game, a road victory against the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night.
Up front all four lines remained in tact, though Bill Peters did flip Sam Bennett up the roster for Michael Frolik midway through the game in an effort to create some offence. He’s done the opposite to protect leads in recent games as well.
On the blueline Oliver Kylington sat out again with a minor injury meaning Oscar Fantenberg started his second straight game as a Calgary Flame. I honestly didn’t think we’d see an impact from that deal so quickly, but it has been nice to have another left shot option.
Iginla Night
Sure Craig Conroy went long, but he did a great job and created some good laughs.
I loved the fact that Iginla’s highlight video was narrated by Lanny McDonald, I think it added a smart and goose bump worthy generational feel to adding a big number to the rafters. Overall the night had that Flames royalty kind of feel to it which was extremely well done
The man himself was great at the mic; I loved how he singled out Conroy, Miikka Kiprusoff and Robyn Regehr for playing so long with him and having success. His ribs on Conroy were classic, and so too was the crowd yelling “it was in” on three different occasions.
The downside was the effect of having all those people in the building for 6 hours instead of three; we had four guys tossed behind us for a variety of reasons, giving my daughter her first real look at public intoxication.
Sam Bennett Season In A Nut Shell
Talk about having Sam Bennett’s season all in one night.
The winger has been money this year, well maybe not on the scoresheet, but certainly in his ability to effect games through physical play, sticking up for teammates, and creating momentum.
Often however, we’ve laughed at how points are taken away from the player every other night. Disallowed goals, third assists, missed opportunities.
Tonight we saw all three as Bennett lost a first period goal on a goalie interference penalty; a call that I could certainly see coming despite loving his circa 1984 Glen Anderson drive to the net and into Devin Dubnyk. In the second he got hand cuffed with a wide open net and hit the post. And in the third he was the player before the player that set up the player, charging the puck out of the Calgary zone and leading to the second Flame goal.
Should have been three points, ended with nothing.
Smith Playing the Puck
Those that have known me for years, know I fight against extremes. If everyone is down on a player and I feel it goes overboard I tend to use logic and stats to push back; get the discussion back to at least what I would consider fair.
The Mike Smith puck playing thing is an advantage, at least until it’s not. We saw when Calgary played the Islanders, that Smith being on his toes made a huge difference in the Brooklyn team’s ability to get pucks deep and set up their forecheck.
So with that you take the risk and realize that eventually he’ll get burned.
What burned me tonight however wasn’t the mistake, it was Mike Smith’s unwillingness to see he was in trouble, and get back to his net. Too many seconds went by with him in a scrum behind the net when he could have bailed on the battle and gotten back to his net.
That’s not a puck handling mistake; its stubbornness.
The Goalie Map
What the loss does do at least, is re-open the goalie debate again, or at least it should.
Mike Smith has had five straight wins, and solid save percentage nights in three of his last four starts, and four of his last six.
Tonight won’t be one of those checkmarks, not in the game result or the stats that come with it.
So with Toronto on the ledger you’d assume they come back to David Rittich, who has two straight wins giving up only a goal per evening, albeit against weaker opponents.
A solid showing/win from Rittich against Toronto could sway the goalie pendulum back towards the understudy with key March games coming.
Offence Waning
The Flames have been getting the job done, you don’t win seven straight games without a lot of your game going right.
But one thing we’ve seen of late, is less finish for a team that has been dramatically out shooting and out chancing their opponents. In their last five games they’ve out shot opponents by a total of 162-119 or the per game equivelant of 32-23, but only 11-8 in terms of goal differential.
The team’s shooting percentage has been 6.8% in those five games, a pace that would have them in last place in the National Hockey League over the course of a season.
They’re just not finishing.
Part of that is expected, the top line has been mired in muck for the past few weeks, and expecting the lesser lights on your roster to rise to the occasion nightly is a recipe for disaster.
The upside of numbers that are below worst team pace is the unlikeliness that they continue, things should turn around, but right now they’re not getting it done offensively.
Standings Implications
Not a lot, to be honest.
Calgary loses, but the Jets, Predators and Sharks didn’t play so all it did was burn a game in hand on some teams, and yield a game in hand in the case of the Jets.
Calgary’s lead in their division is now five games with even games played. Their lead on the Central teams is nine points on Winnipeg with the Jets having that game in hand, and ten points on Nashville with Calgary having three games in hand.
The bottom of the conference is shaping into a four team race now for the two wild card spots with Dallas, Minnesota, Arizona and Colorado.
My money is on a Calgary/Arizona first round matchup.
Counting Stats
Team Stats:
Shots – Calgary 37 Minnesota 23
Face Offs – 53% Calgary
Special Teams – Calgary 0/3 Wild 0/2
Player Stats:
Points – Six players with 1
Plus/Minus – No plus players
Shots – Sean Monahan with 7
Fancy Stats
The final score was for the most part misleading as the Flames carried the play five on five for the entirety of the night. Shot attempts five on five were 64% Calgary with period splits of 77%/62% and 53%. Scoring chances were 59% for Calgary, while high danger chances finished 7-8 for the Flames at 47%. Four of Calgary’s seven high danger five on five chances came in the first period.
In all situations the Flames had 64% of the shot attempts, 60% of the scoring chances but once again less than half of the high danger chances with a 9-10 split.
Individually, the top line led the way with numbers in the 70s, a good sign as we wait for the trio to break out again. Johnny Gaudreau led the way with 77%, Monahan has 76% and Lindholm had 71%. Mark Giordano and Mark Jankowski also hit the 70s. The fourth line had their first weak game in a long time with Garnet Hathaway bringing up the rear at 22%, followed by Derek Ryan at 43% and Andrew Mangiapane at 47%.
