We all know the story for season openers … the Flames are now 11 years into a losing streak.
But a quieter streak that continued tonight is home openers vs the Vancouver Canucks and success, tonight the Flames running their win streak to launch the Dome to four with a 3-0 victory on Saturday night.
Calgary played a tight five on five game tonight, giving up next to nothing, and generating pretty much the other way. It was the powerplay that carried the mail with all three goals on the night to add to a decent start on the man advantage in Winnipeg.
The win gets the team off to a pretty solid 1-0-1 start in the North Division, good for a second place tie with the Montreal Canadiens early on in the schedule.
The Lineup
With the Flames reeling on Thursday night, with line after line spending way too much time in their own zone, coach Geoff Ward made a little adjustment to the bottom six that gave the third line a boost even if it didn’t alter the fate of the fourth line much.
Moving Sam Bennett up to the wing with Mikael Backlund and Andrew Mangiapane created the team’s best third period line, as they generated chances and started the puch back to a more even period than the second.
Those changes are in place to start the game tonight as we’ll see that third line return, with Derek Ryan centering the fourth line. Joakim Nordstrom comes out with Dominik Simon making his Flames debut. The top two lines don’t change with Elias Lindholm centering Matthew Tkachuk and Dillon Dube and Sean Monahan between Johnny Gaudreau and Josh Leivo.
No changes to the blueline as Mark Giordano continues with Rasmus Andersson, while Noah Hanifin continues his work with Chris Tanev. The third pairing remains Juuso Valimaki and Nikita Nesterov.
The starter of course Jacob Markstrom playing against his old mates for the first time since coming to Calgary as a free agent in October.
The Bottom Six Story
Not a bad start for all six basement dwellers as the team pretty much controlled the play in the first period five on five, with even the fourth line getting decent traction.
The fourth line had their struggles but nowhere near to the extremes we saw in Winnipeg, and the third line had the share of play.
The most head shaking issue though was Sam Bennett (and I guess Mikael Backlund) taking bad penalties. Both players have a checkered past with too many ticky tacky calls, but Bennett had two of them after the promotion to the third line.
Will this guy ever stop shooting himself in the foot?
The good? Sam Bennett was 60+% in corsi on the night, and certainly added some fuel to the third line, but he has to be smarter.
High Danger No Danger
One of the things that has me a little worried to start the season is the lack of blue chip chance generation five on five.
The Flames only had four in Winnipeg at even strength and that just isn’t enough to win hockey games.
Last season the Flames were 20th in the league with 10.3/60 minutes, but just 0.3/60 back of the average team. When Geoff Ward took over on November 26th though, the Flames had 11.1/60 which was good for 13th, a decent improvement.
Tonight much of the same as the Flames did their damage with the man advantage, but failed to generate much five on five with only five high danger chances in the entirety of the game. In all fairness they’re not giving up much either … Vancouver had one (yeah 1) high danger chance five on five through two periods and two on the game.
Having a goaltender like Jacob Markstrom is nice, but if you help him out it goes even further.
Helmet Ads
I get the helmet ad thing, the teams need to find revenue wherever they can.
But man am I happy the Flames have a relatively small Scotia symbol instead of an entire word or a huge flashy logo. The Canucks for example with ROGERS on their helmet just doesn’t look right.
The Evolution of Gaudreau and Monahan
Baby steps right?
I didn’t think Gaudreau and Monahan were terrible in Winnipeg, but it’s beyond debate that they didn’t dominate five on five. Johnny Gaudreau scored a powerplay goal, but other than that they were pretty quiet.
Tonight Monahan scored a powerplay goal again, but probably more importantly they were much better five on five.
They broke the game even in shot attempts, but were both 60% in expected goal splits and gave up very little defensively.
Take it!
Ex Canucks Night
The basic stats ….
Jacob Markstrom pitches a shut out turning aside 32 shots for his first goose egg in Flames silks.
Chris Tanev had 20.5 minutes, a shot on goal and eight blocked shots!
Josh Leivo a pretty quiet night, but no negative stats in 12 minutes of ice time.
Love Me Some Chris Tanev
Such a good start to his Flame’s chapter.
A solid first game in Winnipeg with a key assist and a good showing pretty much in every facet of the game.
Tonight another solid 20 minutes with eight blocked shots, and a huge presence on the penalty kill.
The guy can straight out play, a pretty interesting hybrid between Travis Hamonic and TJ Brodie honestly. He doesn’t have Brodie’s mobility, but he does have Hamonic’s guts, and a better skating stride.
The guy was 61% CF% on the night.
Last Line of Defense
That felt good didn’t it?
A lot has been said about the time gap between Miikka Kiprusoff and Jacob Markstrom. The point is solid, but there have been times where Calgary has received better than average goaltending including recent stretches for Cam Talbot, David Rittich and Mike Smith.
But I have to admit tonight was different. About ten minutes into the first period you just had this feeling that he had it. No maybe he wouldn’t secure a shut out, but it didn’t seem likely that he was going to get beat on anything low danger, and probably not medium danger either.
That was a change.
When Calgary scored the second goal it felt over didn’t it? Did to me.
Tight Division and Points
The North Division … still think they blew it not calling it the Canadian Division, is going to be a dog fight. Four teams made it, three don’t and there’s honestly not a lot of real estate between expectations for six of the seven teams, and the Senators are off to a good start.
So you can’t afford to get behind early in the season, points are just far too important.
The Lucic Scope
When a fourth line struggles it falls to all three players, but that doesn’t keep the focus from falling to one player, especially if he made an egregious turnover in the first minute of the second period, resulting in a momentum changing goal.
So with that I was interested to see what kind of game we got out of Milan Lucic tonight. Last season he seemed to find a role on the team’s third line, a player that you could count on to not get filled in with chance and shot splits. But has he lost another step? Has the league sped up yet again from last season?
A much better night for the fourth line was certainly a better night for Milan Lucic, as they didn’t get hemmed in as much and at least came close to breaking it even five on five.
Additionally, he played a key role on Dillon Dube’s second period powerplay goal, providing a huge screen on Brayden Holtby.
Counting Stats
Team Stats:
Shots – Flames 35 Canucks 32
Face Offs – Canucks 60%
Special Teams – Flames 3/6 Canucks 0/4
Player Stats:
Points – Matthew Tkachuk paces his team with a goal and an assist.
Plus/Minus – Shut out win with all the goals scored with the man advantage? Everyone even!
Shots – Matthew Tkachuk led the way with five shots on goal.
Fancy Stats
The Flames had the lion’s share of five on five play with 54.3% of the shot attempts on the night with period splits of 57%/60% and 46%. In terms of high danger chances the Flames had 71% of the split, with a 5-2 edge. Expected goals landed 61% Flames five on five.
In all situations the Flames had 53.4% of the shot attempts, 69% of the high danger chances and an expected goal split of 62%.
Individually the Flames were led by Dillon Dube with an eye popping 76.5% on the night. Matthew Tkachuk was hot on his heels with 75%. Guys in the 60s included Mikael Backlund, Andrew Mangiapane, Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev and Sam Bennett. On the bottom of the list Dominik Simon, Milan Lucic and Rasmus Andersson all finished under 40%.
