Just another one of those nights in a long long Calgary Flames season.
The Coyotes score four goals, two off of Flame players, one of a tip from a bouncing puck from the point and another on a screen shot to turn back the Flames 4-1 in a game where they were out shot 43-21 despite having a powerplay edge of 4-1.
Sigh.
Don’t worry Flames’ fans only two more dates on the calendar until your attention can turn to next year and your playoff hockey pool.
The Mavericks come out guns blazing in a must win make up game. Matt Robertson gets a hat trick on the night with other markers coming from Jared VanWormer and 2 from Mark Cooper. Tulsa came back with a little life in the 2nd half of the game but it wasn’t enough to catch up to the offensive powerhouse Kansas City was tonight.
Mike Smith put it well; “It’s nice to play a meaningful game”, when he spoke to HNIC after turning aside an Oiler assault to pick up a 3-2 win on Saturday night.
Take from a guy writing game stories, … ditto. It’s nice to have something to write about.
This one wasn’t a Picasso from the Flames perspective. They turned a brutal start into a red hot first period and then pretty much sat on it, relying on Mike Smith to steer the game home and snap a seven game losings streak.
And back to back wins over the Oilers. In a season without a whole lot of happiness you have to hang your hat on something!
Not sure what else I can say.
We’ve written this script over and over again in the last two weeks with the injury depleted Flames limping towards the finish line in a season that won’t come soon enough.
The crew out shot and out chanced their opposition, but the exemplary goaltending by Sergei Bobrovsky and the iffy goaltending by Jon Gillies turned what could have been a tight game into a 5-1 triumph by the Jackets.
The Flames have now lost six in a row as they can’t find that April 7th gun shot soon enough.
I suppose it would have been foolish to expect anything different.
The Calgary Flames haven’t done a great job of scoring goals of late, but take the top three forwards out of their lineup and add in the knowledge that they’re playing for next year and it would be hard to imagine a back and forth game of fire wagon hockey in Los Angeles tonight.
We didn’t. And it wasn’t.
The Kings scored two second period goals, and added a third in the third; all on the powerplay to push aside the Flames by a score of 3-0 on Monday night.
The Flames had gumption. They played physical. Their effort couldn’t be denied. But they just don’t have the horses to push back.
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