Overtime has not been this team’s friend in this early season.
Four dates on home ice in the first month and change of the season and three overtime losses as the Flames lost to the Dallas Stars by a 4-3 score tonight in Calgary.
The Flames were off tonight.
They didn’t play in synch, they didn’t play as cohesive and tight together. They didn’t play fast. They made a lot of mistakes.
I guess if you’re looking for a bright side it’s the point they earned with a late Nikita Zadorov snipe on a great individual play by Oliver Kylington on a delayed penalty.
They didn’t have it tonight, but they battled, and if that’s a bad game this season, it’s certainly a big step up from their last season.
The Lineup
With the injury to Brett Ritchie on Tuesday night a change up front was necessary, the first change we’ve seen since Blake Coleman returned from a suspension in game two of the season.
Walker Duehr was called up by the Flames and was expected to play on a line with Dillon Dube and Andrew Mangiapane but it sounds like he may not have been ready as Brad Richardson draws in instead. With that some change to the bottom two lines. Elias Lindholm with Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk, Mikael Backlund with Blake Coleman and Tyler Pitlick, Dillon Dube with Milan Lucic and Andrew Mangiapane and Sean Monahan with Brad Richardson and Trevor Lewis.
On the blueline no change so it’s Noah Hanifin with Rasmus Andersson, Oliver Kylington with Chris Tanev, and Nikita Zadorov with Erik Gudbranson. I’d thought it possible we’d see Juuso Valimaki after a loss and Zadorov giving the puck away a couple of times.
In goal it’s Jacob Markstrom, who lost his shut out streak last game in a contest where he gave up three on just over 20 shots, eroding his numbers slightly.
Line Metrics
xGF%
Gaudreau – Lindholm – Tkachuk 62.2%
Coleman – Backlund – Pitlick 47.9%
Mangiapane – Dube – Duehr NA%
Lucic – Monahan – Lewis 43.2%
Hanifin – Andersson 53.3%
Kylington – Tanev 63.2%
Zadorov – Gudbranson 61.5%
Goals Saved + Avg
Markstrom 6.5
Out of Synch
The Flames have had a lot of consistency of late.
Consistent game in and game out, and consistent fast starts against most opponents.
Tonight though they seemed completely out of synch to start the game. Hockey is a myopic
sport with fans and media seeing most results as either good or bad play by their team, often overlooking the opposition. So with that said, I think it was a part and part situation where Calgary was flat and off their normal tight fast game, and Dallas on their game and bottling up the Flames attack.
They had some chances, but they never really got untracked.
What Did Tkachuk Say?
Sometimes you can see something boiling over. A bad call on the ice and a player snaps and lets the ref have it. If said ref is in a foul mood the arm goes up and the player sits for two minutes.
But tonight Matthew Tkachuk picks up a chirping penalty from his own bench with very little going on on the ice.
The Flames had possession in the offensive zone and were working it around before the puck came out to center … whistle and he’s gone.
Certainly wasn’t an obvious reason to yell at an official from my standpoint.
Switching Centers
Darryl Sutter hasn’t had to do a lot of juggling this season with his team losing only once in regulation coming into tonight.
So it was interesting to see some moves made with the team sputtering in the second period down a goal and generating very little.
He didn’t shorten the bench, but instead he rotated the four centermen through the roster creating four different looks. The change worked as minutes into the swap Milan Lucic tipped home a Zadorov point shot to get the game tied at 1-1.
When Dallas went back up in the third period he did the same, rotating the centermen.
Counting Stats
Shots: Flames 33/ Stars 28
Face Offs: Flames 51% / Stars 49%
Powerplay: Flames 1-5 / Stars 1-3
Fancy Stats
I said it a few times before the season started. My expectation of the 2021-22 Calgary Flames was a team that drove the play, had the share of shot attempts and chances, but couldn’t convert and with that would sputter and be a bubble team. Through the first few weeks of the season I was dead wrong as the team got up on teams early and played an air tight system. In the last two games at home however, we are seeing that prediction come true. The Flames weren’t great tonight, certainly not as good as they were against Nashville on Tuesday, but they were the better team by most metrics. Five on five they had 57% of the shot attempts with period splits of 44%/69% and 58% respectively. In terms of five on five expected goals, the Flames had 57%, and for high danger scoring chances the team had 64%, with a dominant 9-5 split.
In all situations the Flames had 57% of the shot attempts,56% of the expected goals, and 63% of the high danger splits. It wasn’t Markstrom’s best night, and the team didn’t finish on the chances they generated.
Individually the Flames were led by their third pairing with Nikita Zadorov and Erik Gudbranson posting 78% and 72% of the five on five shot attempts when they were on the ice. Elias Lindholm, Matthew Tkachuk, Oliver Kylington, Andrew Mangiapane and Chris Tanev were all over the 60% mark. Trevor Lewis with just 22% was at the bottom of the pile, followed closely by Noah Hanifin and Rasmus Andersson who posted numbers in the 30s.
