Was that a complete game from the Calgary Flames?
It just might be!
Not a sag to be seen as the Flames run out three straight solid periods while receiving a late Elias Lindholm powerplay goal to grasp the two points in 3-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets.
The Jets scored the only goal in the first period, Calgary bounced back to take the lead in the second, before the Jets tied it and sent the game to a third all squared.
That’s two in a row for the Flames pushing their record to 6-5-1 on the season, essentially tied with both Winnipeg and Edmonton who are also a game over .500, with the big caveat being games against Ottawa.
Winnipeg has played Ottawa three times, Edmonton four, while Calgary has yet to play the Senators.
The Line Up
Saturday night featured a pretty strange roster, so even with the 6-4 victory over the Edmonton Oilers there was bound to be change and as expected their is a a minor tweak
The Cage
With two full days off between games the Flames are afforded the luxury of going back to Jacob Markstrom again, and not having to use David Rittich to see if they can start a bit of a win streak. With four straight games against Vancouver there should be plenty of opportunity to get Rittich some work, though none of the games are back to back.
Jacob Markstrom
Save % Above Expected – 0.149%
David Rittich
Save % Above Expected – -3.670%
The Blueline
No change once again, as the most solidified part of the Calgary lineup continues to chug along. There was a lot of trepidation when Michael Stone was a) invited to camp b) signed and then c) briefly recalled, but they’ve walked out the same six in the same pairs each and every night to start the season. With that said you’ll see Mark Giordano and Rasmus Andersson as a pair; they’ve still had the rough start but have had a better body of work of late, with their numbers creeping towards break even. Another solid Saturday night from Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev, as one of the team’s most pleasant surprises continue to play dividends. And finally the solid third pairing of Juuso Valimaki and Nikita Nesterov.
Giordano – Andersson
41% xGF in 139 minutes
Hanifin – Tanev
68% xGF in 155 minutes
Valimaki – Nesterov
58% xGF in 136 minutes
Up Front
The strange set up for the Edmonton game may have resulted in a more set look for the top nine as Geoff Ward returns the same top three lines in Elias Lindholm between Matthew Tkachuk and Dillon Dube, Sean Monahan between Johnny Gaudreau and Sam Bennett, and Mikael Backlund between Milan Lucic and Andrew Mangiapane. We saw a better Lindholm line performance on Saturday night as they as a line at least met the breakeven point after some rough outings of late. Monahan’s line was poor in metrics, but found the net for two third period goals, and the Backlund line ran all over Edmonton all night. Tonight they take Zach Rinaldo out for Josh Leivo, a move that should give the threesome a chance to punch to the even ground line, though don’t hold your breath. The line is Byron Froese between Leivo and Joakin Nordstrom. Froese has barely played hockey in a year, Nordstrom is coming off a two minor face palm night, while Leivo has had good numbers but nothing to show for it.
Tkachuk – Lindholm – Dube
39% xGF in 77 minutes
Gaudreau – Monahan – Bennett
36% xGF in 18 minutes
Lucic – Backlund – Mangiapane
75% xGF in 15 minutes
Leivo – Froese – Nordstrom
New formation
Hey! They’re Not Down Two!
The Flames haven’t started every game poorly this season, but they’ve certainly dug a hole more often than not.
Tonight a pretty solid start, as they traded chances with the Jets in a pretty well played period going both ways.
Each team had a powerplay that was pretty effective, five on five was pretty even and both goaltenders had a good 20 minutes keeping the game tied through 20 minutes.
Of course the Flames haven’t laid an egg only in the first 20 …
Valimaki / Gaudreau Chemistry
Interesting to watch some emerging chemistry between relatively new teammates still in this early season.
Juuso Valimaki has had his ups and downs this year, I’d say mostly ups for the most part. But one interesting wrinkle has been his emerging chemistry with Johnny Gaudreau.
They don’t play a line of course; one is a left winger, one a left defenseman, but they seem to find each other often in a game.
Valimaki of course has set up Johnny Gaudreau for two tap ins on the season, but even tonight I noticed a few tap backs from Gaudreau when it looked like he was going to take the puck up the ice.
Perhaps the two have similar processing speed for the pace of the NHL, would think a lot of guys would look that off after getting the puck up to the star player.
Something to watch anyway.
Maybe Bennett-Gate Stands Down?
The third period in Winnipeg with Monahan, Gaudreau and Bennett on a line didn’t look good. Terrible numbers. Badly outplayed.
The game against Edmonton still wasn’t pretty in summary, but a huge leap (couldn’t get much worse than 3%) and two huge third period goals were key in the win.
Tonight though it looked like actual chemistry.
Bennett and Gaudreau seemed to find each other often on transition and cycle plays creating chances and driving the action more often than not.
The bottom line is it appears Calgary has three fairly balanced scoring lines which is money on battling matchups.
Maybe Sam Bennett rescinds the trade request with a different deployment? Either way I’m guessing Brad Treliving isn’t in a big hurry to make that change.
Special Teams
In previous games the Jets road their special teams to victory in running up a 3-1 split with the Flames through four games.
Tonight the special teams were equal when Elias Lindholm scored the game winner just under two minutes remaining.
Both teams had one powerplay goal on two opportunities, leaving the five on five play to decide the game.
The Ray Edwards Effect
Hard to miss the uptick in Calgary’s powerplay this season, though I guess it ticks back to last year’s bubble as well.
Better puck movement.
More energy.
Better results.
Both the first unit and the second unit are better utilizing the “Ovechkin” of late, finding that open guy on his opening stance for a one timer. We’ve seen it with both units, most noticeably with Dillon Dube’s big goal against the Oilers.
Once you establish that “weapon” the other plays start to emerge as well because teams start to cheat lower to eliminate the seam creating more plays from the blueline.
Ray Edwards has been that architect. He’s making a huge difference.
Counting Stats
Team Stats:
Shots – Flames 29 Jets 27
Face Offs – Flames 56%
Special Teams – Flames 1/2 Jets 1/2
Player Stats:
Points – Talk about spreading out the scoring, the Flames had one point on the sheet from nine different skaters including seven different forwards and two different defensemen.
Plus/Minus -To continue the theme seven different players had +1 nights overall.
Shots – Mikael Backlund edged out Elias Lindholm and Juuso Valimaki to register five shots on goal on the night.
Fancy Stats
The Flames pretty much ran the show in completing their most consistent night on the season to date. Five on five the Flames had 61% of the shot attempts with period splits of 66%/54% and 61%. In terms of high danger chances the Flames had a huge advantage with a 12-1 split, their most dominant effort of the season. As you would think the expected goal split was also heavily towards Calgary with a 74% record five on five.
In all situations the Flames had 58% of the shot attempts, 93% of the high danger chances and an expected goal split of 69%.
Complete 60.
Individually the numbers, as you’d expect were also dominant. The Flames were lead overall by the third line and much maligned first pairing. Andrew Mangiapane was at the top with 83%, followed by linemates Milan Lucic at 75% and Mikael Backlund at 73%. Mark Giordano was next at 71%, followed by his pairing mate Rasmus Andersson at 70%. Johnny Gaudreau, Sam Bennett, Sean Monahan and Juuso Valimaki also had great evenings. Only three players finished under the 50% mark; Matthew Tkachuk, Dillon Dube and Joakim Nordstrom.
