That wasn’t pretty.
The Flames had one of those nights at home to the Montreal Canadiens.
Lots of turnovers, bobbled pucks, mental mistakes and cough ups as the visiting Habs erased a 3-1 deficit with one goal late in the second, two more in the third, and then the overtime winner in a 5-4 overtime win on Thursday night.
The Flames found a point on a late Elias Lindholm goal, but this is one to just bury in the tape room never to be reviewed again.
Ugly night.
The Lineup
Looking for their 12th straight win on home ice, Sutter once again doesn’t make any changes despite playing a team that is clearly not in the playoff picture. Would have thought this could have been a Dan Vladar start, but once again they go with Jacob Markstrom. Points are points I guess.
So up front it’s Elias Lindholm with Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk, Mikael Backlund with Blake Coleman and Andrew Mangiapane, Sean Monahan with Milan Lucic and Tyler Toffoli, and the veteran fourth line of Brad Richardson with Trevor Lewis and Brett Ritchie. This makes three straight games with both Dillon Dube and Adam Ruzicka scratched, thus far the vets line has been very good in one game, and considerably less good in the other; though the Flames for the most part didn’t have the best of territorial games in Minnesota.
On the blueline it’s Noah Hanifin with Rasmus Andersson, Oliver Kylington with Chris Tanev, and Nikita Zadorov with Erik Gudbranson.
And as I said, Jacob Markstrom in goal.
Line Metrics
xGF%
Gaudreau – Lindholm – Tkachuk 62.4%
Mangiapane – Backlund – Coleman 64.8%
Lucic – Monahan – Toffoli 40.0%
Lewis – Richardson – Ritchie 52.4%
Hanifin – Andersson 58.4%
Kylington – Tanev 58.3%
Zadorov – Gudbranson 59.1%
Goals Saved + Avg
Markstrom +12.4
Who They Playing?
This won’t come as a shock; but the Montreal Canadiens haven’t had a great season to date.
They are ranked 24th in CF% with the 23rd best five on five team offence and the 25th overall team five on five defense. Montreal bleeds chances as they are the 28th ranked team by expected goal splits with the third worst expected goals against per 60 minutes of five on five hockey.
They have the fifth worst team five on five shooting percentage and the 6th worst team save percentage.
On special teams it doesn’t get better as Montreal has the 31st ranked powerplay and the 31st ranked penalty kill.
If the Flames play their game they should clearly be fine, especially if the Martin St. Louis coach bump is over.
C Game?
That was one fugly game by the Calgary Flames.
Sutter stresses that good teams have to have a really good “B” game to pick up points when they’re not at their best.
Tonight the Flames rolled out their “C” if not “D” game against Montreal and in the end were pretty fortunate to get a point.
I wouldn’t say it was a lack of effort, just a lack of cohesion and bounces. Pucks rolling off sticks, pucks hitting skates, turn overs, bobbles, it was an ugly ugly game to watch from the drop of the puck. And an absolute boat load of mental mistakes all over the ice.
Numerous players with nightmare nights.
Mangiapane
What a night for Andrew Mangiapane.
He scores his 29th of the season on a great backhand shorthanded, but adds two primary assists in the game with one of the first goal, and then another on Elias Lindholm’s game winner.
On a night where a lot of Flames were fighting the puck and not sharp, Andrew Mangiapane was bringing his personal “A” game.
Two Givens Shaky
Lots of players have up and down seasons … streaky periods where you can do nothing wrong, and then a long stretch where you’re invisible.
Two of Calgary’s most consistent players this season have been a pair of Swedes; Jacob Markstrom and Elias Lindholm, but they both had odd nights tonight.
Elias Lindholm didn’t make any huge mistakes but the number of times he bobbled passes, or over skated the puck, or just turned it over was very uncharacteristic. He did redeem himself with the game tying goal on a great play by Mangiapane.
For Markstrom it was different. He faced a lot of rubber, and likely held his team in it in the first period. But then in the last 41 minutes of regulation time he gave up four goals in 18 shots some of which were out of character and a little weak as well.
Signing Guys
We’ve talked about it ad naseum, but signing everyone is going to get tough, especially with the numbers that all of Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane, and maybe to a lesser degree Oliver Kylington are putting up.
The good news though, is that three of the four are RFAs so if you have to pick an RFA to trade you get some pretty nice assets back.
Get Gaudreau done and then see what you can do with the other three for asset management.
Special Teams
The Flames will get chewed out for a lot of things in this one, but high up the list will be team discipline as the Flames took far too many penalties for the second time in four games.
They need to stop that slide.
In the end the Flames go 0-3 on the powerplay but score a shorthanded goal. The Habs go 1-6 on the powerplay with two two man advantages to saw it off in terms of special teams.
But the Habs get the edge because of the Flame’s lack of discipline
Standings and Record
One of those nights, you’d like to see a win against a non playoff team, but given they were down with two and a half minutes to go you take the point.
The Oilers lose in overtime as well, so they don’t gain any ground.
In the Pacific Division the Flames move six points up on second place Los Angeles with two games in hand. The Oilers are now third in the division, but seven points back of the Flames, once again with Calgary having two games in hand.
Counting Stats
Shots: Flames 34 Habs 35
Face Offs: Flames 53% / Habs 47%
Powerplay: Flames 0-3 / Habs 1-6
Fancy Stats
The Flames were far from sharp, they made a tonne of mistakes and likely deserved their fate in a 5-4 overtime loss, but the underlying numbers support the notion that Montreal wasn’t all that good either. Five on five the Flames had 53% of the shot attempts with period splits of 36%/50% and 66% respectively. In terms of five on five expected goals, the Flames had 55%, and for high danger scoring chances the Flames had 58%, with a 11-8 split.
In all situations the Flames had 52% of the shot attempts, 55% of the expected goals, and 62% of the high danger splits.
The Flames were lead individually by Trevor Lewis who had 86% of the five on five shot attempts when he was on the ice. His linemates Brett Ritchie and Brad Richardson also had a solid night with 70+% of the shot attempts. Four players had nights in the 60s, including Blake Coleman, Matthew Tkachuk, Mikael Backlund and Andrew Mangiapane. Only four players were under water; the third line of Seaon Monahan, Tyler Toffoli and Milan Lucic, and defenseman Erik Gudbranson.
