Cam Talbot is feeling it right now.
When a goalie gets in a groove you often see equal parts of making the saves when needed, but also garnering the luck to make the record, and result a positive one night in and night out.
Last night the stats show Talbot stopping 41 of 42 shots to propel the Flames for their second straight 2-1 National Hockey League victory. But he’d be the first to tell you that some pucks got through him but wiggled wide in a game that had Calgary cruising until they got their final lead, and then chose to pretty much sit on it and hope that their visitors wouldn’t find the mark.
A win is a win however, and this was Calgary’s fourth straight coming off two disappointing home losses, making the race in both the Pacific and West extremely tight heading into the all star break in about ten days.
Should be fun.
Line Up Changes
Not a one.
The Flames are going with the exact lineup iced in Chicago in the 2-1 victory on Tuesday night from the cage on out.
Cam Talbot starts his second straight game in the nets, more on that in the next section.
The defense pairings stay as they were with Oliver Kylington and the newly signed Rasmus Andersson on the third pairing, Noah Hanifin and Travis Hamonic on the second pairing, and a top pairing of Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie.
Up front it’s the same top three lines; Elias Lindholm between Matthew Tkachuk and Andrew Mangiapane, Sean Monahan between Johnny Gaudreau and Mikael Backlund, and Derek Ryan between Milan Lucic and Dillon Dube. That leaves a fourth line constructed of Mark Jankowski between Zach Rinaldo and Sam Bennett.
Michael Stone and Tobias Reider get the night off.
The Tandem Debate
With Talbot getting roughly half of the starts in the last 15 games it’s interesting to dig into their stats a bit and look for differences both in the goaltenders and how the team plays with each guy in net.
Talbot has the edge over David Rittich with a .917 save percentage over .911.
Talbot has saved 3.82 goals above average, edging Rittich and his 3.59. That number appears to be close, but when you take into account the disparity in minutes played it’s a much greater gap; 0.29/60 vs 0.11/60. Talbot is 15th league wide in this stat.
When it comes to high danger shots, the Flames have a tendency to look after Talbot more so than they play sound defence when Rittich is in the nets. Talbot has the lowest high danger shots / 60 of any of the 60 most used goaltenders in the league this year at 5.78/60. Rittich faces 7.44/60, or almost two more per game.
Rittich is the second best stopper in the circuit when it comes to high danger save percentage at .863, while Talbot is way down the list at 48th with .787.
Talbot’s average shot length is 37.91 feet (8th longest), while Rittich has an average distance of 35.64 feet (40th). Both goaltenders have been beat at a distance of 24 feet.
The Flames play better in front of Talbot, but Rittich is able to handle the mistakes. Rittich leaks his save percentage in medium and low danger (easy ones) chances.
Talbot Wardrope Sac-religion
Speaking of Cam Talbot, what on Earth is he doing with his glove side arm in not pulling the jersey down to cover his goalie shoulder arm cover thingamagic?
It’s one thing if he was doing that with the normal home jerseys, I could let that slide, but he really shouldn’t mess with the pristine look of the Calgary retro set.
Get your gear in order!
Actually not the first time I noticed this, which makes me wonder if the cuffs on the retro set are tighter or something.
The Art of the Pinch
The best perk of having great players on your team is having great players on your team. That’s pretty obvious.
The second perk however is the opportunity for young players to practice and play with said great players on a day to day basis, allowing them to pick up tricks of the trade.
Can’t help but notice Rasmus Andersson specifically, and Noah Hanifin to a lesser degree picking up the Mark Giordano pinch and making it part of their day to day games. Giordano as we’ve all seen is about as quick as they come in jumping down the wall and wedging his body into the way of the opposing player’s attempt to play the puck.
Good things rub off.
Ras Sass
Some great video of Rasmus Andersson doing what he does last night in the third period.
The Wild were trying to push the puck up the ice, but Andersson tied up his man, and then fell on him forcing a whistle. That resulted in a scrum that had the Swede entering late, only to get himself in a bench to bench argument with Matt Zucharello.
At the end of the clip a classic hand gesture made to represent Andersson himself falling on Zucharello’s teammate. To add to the gesture Andersson yells “Boom!”.
The guy is just too funny. Guessing not a heck of a lot of fun to play against though.
Bad Ice
Andrew Mangiapane goes down every night, but we also saw spills from Mark Giordano twice, and then a classic fall from the linesman late on an icing call making me wonder if the ice was sub par last night at the Saddledome.
Both of Giordano’s stumbles seemed to come from a rut in the ice, and so too did the linesman falling.
Give the guy credit though … while sliding forward on the ice on his tummy he blew his whistle to signal an icing call and then rolled over on his but and made the signal.
Out of Town Help
Lots of help on the out of town scoreboard last night despite the fact the Oilers came back and beat the Canadiens in Montreal.
Losses to Winnipeg, Arizona, Vancouver and Vegas helped to really tighten the Pacific and West up with Calgary and Edmonton both winning.
The Coyotes lead the Pacific with 54 points in 46 games, followed by the Knights with the same amount of points, but an extra game played. The Flames and Oilers are both one point back but with a game in hand on Vegas. The Canucks are now three points back but have two games in hand on Calgary and Edmonton.
Counting Stats
Team Stats:
Shots – Flames 37 Wild 43
Face Offs – Flames 52%
Special Teams – Flames 1/2 Wild 0/2
Player Stats:
Points – Derek Ryan, Johnny Gaudreau, Michael Backlund, Sean Monahan, Rasmus Andersson and Noah Hanifin all had a single point for the Flames last night.
Plus/Minus – Gaudreau, Milan Lucic, Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie were all +1 on the night.
Shots – Johnny Gaudreau and Mark Giordano both had five shots on goal.
Fancy Stats
The Wild pretty much took the game over at the halfway point, something that could be seen in the underlying stats, score effects in toe. The Wild had 62% of the five on five shot attempts with period splits of 46%/70% and 70%. The Wild also had a high danger split five on five of 15-3, telling you how important Cam Talbot was to the bottom line. The Wild enjoyed a 63% xGF% on the night.
In all situations the Wild had 59% of the shot attempts, 76% of the high danger chances and an xGF% of 54%, with Calgary’s powerplay evening the game up quite a bit.
Individually, not a good night either as you’d expect. Only Andrew Mangiapane at 68%, and his linemates Matthew Tkachuk and Elias Lindholm were above the 50% mark. The third line were all under 30%.
