Quite the night for the Calgary Flames and their party happy fathers.
Calgary scores 20 seconds into the game, and then cruise to a 6-2 victory on Thursday night in Arizona.
The Flames sat on the lead to some extent, putting a lot of pressure on Jacob Markstrom the rest of the way.
The win moves the Flames a game over .500 and past the Coyotes in the West standings.
Will be interesting if they can put a string together, but it doesn’t get easier with a stop in Vegas on Saturday night.
Any team can beat any other team on any given night.
We all know that.
We also know that the odds of that happening increase dramatically if the favoured team shows up flat and doesn’t put in the work required to win the hockey game.
Truthfully the Flames were a little unlucky today as they had two own goals, and another off a crazy bounce into the slot in this afternoon’s 4-3 loss in Chicago..
But they didn’t show up ready to put their A game on the ice and paid for it.
The loss squares the road trip at 2-2-0, simply not good enough if you have your eyes on getting back into the playoff race.
You can’t win a game getting dominated for 20 minutes.
You can’t win a game when you take six minor penalties.
Both contributed to the Flames getting run out of the building in the second period, with Jacob Markstrom heroically keeping his team in the game and giving them a chance in a 3-2 loss in Philadelphia.
The loss moves the Flames back to .500 on the season, and 2-1-0 on this four game road trip.
Next up the Chicago Blackhawks tomorrow afternoon.
Solid road game for the Flames.
They scored early, and then really never took their collective feet off the gas as they ran the show on the Predators in a 6-3 victory for the Flames in Nashville.
The win, the Flames third in a row, moves the team to within a point of the final playoff spot in the West (games in hand ignored for now).
The road trip moves to Philly for an afternoon game on Saturday.
The Flames were equal parts effective road execution and holding on for dear life in tonight’s 3-1 victory in Minnesota over the Wild.
Jacob Markstrom was the best player on the ice, as the Flames gave up 14 of the first 15 shots in the third period, but managed to steer a 2-1 lead home with an empty net goal by Blake Coleman.
The Flames have now won two in a row and move back to the .500 mark on the season.
They still have a tough road to get back into things, but you can’t win eight in a row without winning two!
