The downward slide in the standings continues for the Calgary Flames, as they dropped a 5-2 decision to the New York Rangers tonight.

The Flames now have a record of 17-14-2 after 33 games. They’re back in action on Friday night when they host the Dallas Stars in another crucial Western Conference game.

Because I can, I’m going to break format a bit.

The Flames scored twice: once in the second period when they were already down 4-0 (from Jiri Hudler) and another when they were down 5-1 late in the third (from Curtis Glencross) when the game was out of reach and Henrik Lundqvist was probably thinking about where to get ribs after the game.

The Flames generated more shots and shot attempts than the Rangers, but (a) everything that went near Karri Ramo seemed to go in and (b) almost nothing that went near Henrik Lundqvist went in. Hockey’s a fickle game sometimes, and so despite playing yet another pretty solid game, the Flames skated away with zero points.

Kent did a nice piece on the randomness of hockey earlier today – check it out – but here’s a few graphs just to illustrate how weird the game is.

Guess where the Flames are right now? The very bottom.

Again, the Flames are basically at the bottom, and just starting to bounce back. This team has goalies that have run hot and cold this season.

Just a smidge above the worst PDO string they’ve had all season.

They’ve never played better hockey from a puck possession perspective.

They’re 0-6-0 in their last six. It sucks. But this is, in nearly every way, the wonky and wacky Hockey Gods balancing the world out.

The usual.

Bad bounces, occasionally shoddy defensive play and the like. Every time they make a mistake, it ended up in their net.

Matt Stajan had an assist, was one of the few even Flames in terms of plus/minus, and won 77% of his draws. Way to go, Staj.

The Flames are back at it on Friday night, when they meet the Dallas Stars. The puck drops at 7pm MT.