There are games in every season that are meaningless in almost every way, and we all experienced one of those on Thursday evening in Winnipeg. The Winnipeg Jets went into the game more or less knowing that they’ll be playing the Minnesota Wild when the Stanley Cup playoffs begin on Wednesday, and they played like a team that had no interest in engaging physically (or even emotionally) with the Calgary Flames. That suited the Flames fine, as they’ve played like a team incapable of engaging emotionally in a game since around mid-February and are now playing out the string.
The Jets are better team than the Flames. They gave them very little en route to a 2-1 victory over Calgary in the Flames’ second-to-last game of the 2017-18 regular season.
The Rundown
The opening frame was largely even, with the Flames getting a lot of shots and chances but not a lot of great looks. The Jets took the lead late in the first period, as Blake Wheeler redirected a Dustin Byfuglien shot past Jon Gillies to make it 1-0. Shots were 15-7 Flames and chances were 6-4 Flames.
The Jets made it 2-0 midway through second period: Ben Chiarot waited patiently at the point for Paul Stastny to creep into position after being knocked down cycling the puck in the corner, then laid down a low shot for the redirect by Stastny and a 2-0 lead. But the Flames answered back, as Spencer Foo got his first NHL goal, deflecting a Michael Stone point shot through traffic with his skate to make it 2-1. (Johnny Gaudreau grabbed the puck for him.)
? First NHL goal alert ? @spencerfoo pic.twitter.com/s5XN5vQQLD
— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) April 6, 2018
Shots were 9-8 Flames and chances were 6-5 Flames.
Neither team scored in the final frame. The Jets seemed content to clog things up and ride it out. They’re a good team, so they were able to do so. Shots were 9-7 Jets, chances were 3-2 Flames.
Why The Flames Lost
The Jets are a probable Stanley Cup contender with a deep lineup and a mature, structured game-plan. The Flames are missing several regulars, including several of their best offensive players. It’s a minor miracle that this game was as close as it ended up being.
The Flames’ best chances were a pair of first period breakaways for Michael Frolik and Johnny Gaudreau. They both went right into Connor Hellebuyck’s pads. It was that type of game, and it’s been that type of season.
Red Warrior
Foo got his first goal, so he gets the nod, but his line with Sam Bennett and Mikael Backlund were quite good overall.
The Turning Point
The Flames never led in this game at all, but the second goal (the eventual game-winner) swung this thing towards the home side.
The Numbers
(Percentage stats are 5-on-5, data via Corsica.hockey)
| Player | Corsi For% |
O-Zone Start% |
Game Score |
| Lazar | 80.0 | 60.0 | 0.270 |
| Bartkowski | 69.2 | 71.4 | 0.575 |
| Andersson | 68.0 | 71.4 | 0.500 |
| Hathaway | 66.7 | 42.9 | 0.340 |
| Glass | 66.7 | 42.9 | 0.125 |
| Backlund | 63.0 | 36.4 | 1.255 |
| Bennett | 62.5 | 40.0 | 0.460 |
| Frolik | 61.5 | 66.7 | 0.460 |
| Foo | 57.7 | 40.0 | 1.500 |
| Brouwer | 53.3 | 66.7 | -0.150 |
| Kulak | 50.0 | 46.2 | -0.075 |
| Hamilton | 48.0 | 37.5 | -0.075 |
| Stone | 44.0 | 46.2 | 0.600 |
| Giordano | 41.7 | 37.5 | -0.225 |
| Jankowski | 41.2 | 66.7 | -0.530 |
| Ferland | 38.1 | 60.0 | -0.125 |
| Shore | 38.1 | 50.0 | -0.215 |
| Gaudreau | 34.7 | 60.0 | -0.050 |
| Gillies | — | — | 0.900 |
| Smith | — | — | — |
This and That
Michael Frolik left the game after crashing into the boards awkwardly midway through the third period and didn’t return.
Up Next
The Flames (36-35-10) practice tomorrow and then host the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday night for their final game of the 2017-18 season.
Looks like you managed to sum it up this time. It should have been 2-0 Flames with the team cruising to a victory. The measure of a pro is scoring on those breakaways. Shooting in the pads looking for a phantom 5-hole is panicky amateurish at best. At least make a move.
There you have it. If you don’t want it bad enough you don’t get it. Other than that it was a well-played game.
Picking on a flaw of the team’s best offensive player is ‘justthateasy’ and also very Oiler-like.
The players have spoken…. Bye bye GG. Big difference with the Jets comparison is they never mailed it in last year at the end of season. The Jets were a goalie away from being good last year.
I’m happy Foo got his first NHL goal!
Didn’t see the game, but just saw Foo’s first goal. He was in the right place at the right time and probably overdue. Great to see Foo getting chances to play out the year. Meanwhile, congrats to Hall and the NJ Devils for beating Canada’s team and clinching a playoff spot. What’s tougher than being a Flames or Oilers fan? Being a Blues or Avalanche fan. One of these teams are going out of the playoff chase in the next 48 hours. That’s about as painful as it gets. (And it’s painful enough as it is.) Go Jets in the playoffs.
I didn’t watch the game… It feels great. Did Gillies look like a NHL goalie. I was pumped when I heard Foo scored then I saw the highlight. I can’t help thinking Mangi got jobbed when he was called up…weak minutes.
The team was still in the playoff hunt when Mang was up. You think they’d be playing Foo if they were still trying to make the playoffs and weren’t decimated by injuries? Next year, probably.
Gillies played very well. Both goals were excellent tip in/redirects that any goalie would have to have been just plain lucky to stop.
Were we not 11 games over 0.500 at one point this year?
and are we ending the year 1-9 in our last 10 with a -36 goal differential…..?
I was not looking forward to that mandated week off mid year-
but this is just pathetic …
I didn’t want them to fire Hartley
and I sure as heck didn’t want them to hire GG as a last gasp ‘stop gap’ after all the acceptable coaches opted for greener pastures
but GG has to go ….
and if he is still employed April 8th – he is being paid for one day more than he deserves
what an embarrassment
I think we were at least 12 over at one point.
You Know, It just goes to show you that even with his job on the line GG is as stubborn as he is Stupid, To continue with the Brouwerplay(even if it PP2), he hasn’t Flinched on his system/philosophy even as its Failed this team overwhelmingly.
No wonder the players have no push or passion, they are zombiefied and flogged out disinterested, beat down to the point of Not Giving a Crap.
On the Bright side~ a lot of the call ups have looked good before getting the GG Cookie Cutter influence upon them. Just by Removing some of GG’s Favorites and expiring contracts and This team could be very good in the future… Of course that will be helped along greatly by the Right Choice behind the Bench next year…
Not all is Lost Fans… Onward and Upward ~ as they say!
Not sure why the team needs a practise tomorrow. Maybe they should all go to a driving range and get ready for Monday.
I like Rasmus!
He has hard accurate passes up the ice. He plays a heavy game.
But does he look slow out there!?
Hopefully he picks up a step over the summer…
WW
Skates like Matty did last year… Needs work but nothing a slating coach can’t fix. His long breakout tape to tape passes are as good as I have seen.
He looks slow or is thinking too much he does not look that slow in the Stockton games
Maybe he lost one foot race. Maybe he was tired. Maybe the other guy was in full flight. U need more proof.
After the last 35 games there is ZERO chance GG survives next week.
If GG is still here at the end of next week BT has to go. And I like BT……
WW
Watching the last 35 games of the year for the Flames was a lot like watching Sergio Garcia on the 15th at the Masters today.
Hey WW your oilers sure played well again tonight…
You can see that the only thing McJezzub is playing for is cookies. Might as well go for the scoring race because that’s the only trophy he’ll ever win in EDM. One would think that the league leader in points might actually help his team win a few more games. Much more important to gets points than play defensively. Wait at the blueline and hope that one of the other centers out there can play responsibly.
Really? I guess if he was a Flame that would be ok.
McDavid is a 200 foot player. How else to you lead the league in takeaways?
If you think he is a cherry picker , then you don’t really know the game.
The fastest guy in the league doesn’t need to cherry pick.
How about your $9.5M 3rd pairing defence duo?
If GG survives it will be an indication that management was calling too many of his player usage decisions this year and they will feel guilty that their medalling set him up for failure.
Truly the most boring team to watch in the NHL. The Calgary Shames.
? dumb dumb gum gum
Haha oh man your mom let you on the internet again. How cute. Isn’t it way past your bedtime? It is a school night.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. You got this one right.
Absolutely thee worst coached team I’ve ever seen in flames silks. The players are also partly responsible as effort and grit are personal traits, but BT has a lot of responsibility in this fiasco for his lack of being proactive when the crap was sooo visible months ago. An emotional owner group could easily fire everyone from Burke on down. I’d give BT this summer and it would be his last chance.
I disagree. I think BT should be fired along with rest of the coaching staff. He has been given three seasons to improve this team and honestly tell me has he really made this team better? If anything this season has been a mitigated disaster with a total regression.
First off isn’t he the one who hired and put together this current group of coaches?
Next thing is tell me how he has improved this current roster?
By trading first (unprotected) and second round picks for a less than average defense man. A goalie who clearly fell apart when the team needed him the most because the GM failed to trade or sign a competent back up. Or how about the answer on the RW with a free agent signing and trade for two players who clearly should be either playing somewhere else other than the NHL.
On one hand there should be patience and perspective here. I for one don’t like seeing a continual carousel of GM’s and coaches and stability is needed. However going forward just as it is crystal clear this coaching staff must be replaced is Brad Treliving the right GM to take this team to another level?
At one point I was decisively on board he could make this team better, but as of right now and with his current underwhelming track record I don’t know if he is the right GM to lead this team to the promise land?
Unmitigated, not mitigated.
I’m onboard for blowing up management entirely but only if Ken King is one of who leaves. Otherwise, start with the coaches and go from there. On a worrisome note, some of our ‘dreamworld’ options are starting to go off the table. Coach Q. Raanta.
Silver linings: Foo, Shore, Andersson. They all look like they will be on the season opening roster next year and should all be upgrades over whoever’s place they take. Now, just find a first line right winger and some draft picks and a new coaching staff and I can start to get excited about next year.
Foo has looked great. I really like what Shore has brought as well. Hopefully Treliving can move a defenseman to make room for Andersson.
Sure he’s been given some primo minutes, but Foo has looked like a beauty so far. Definitely overdue for his first NHL goal. Will be fun to see what he brings next year, especially since I’m sure these few games should be pretty motivating for him in the off season. Same for Andersson.
*Definitely was overdue for his first goal
Look at that Corsi. Our top line was the worst ever.
Bartkowski only had one bad giveaway this time and number 2 on the Corsi scale.
Corsi is a broken metric.
But a metric by which were coached and failing miserably.
One game to go GG.
Fan appreciation night on Saturday vs the Golden Knights.
Let’s see ya mess this one up even more..
Thank you Spencer Foo for giving us something to cheer about. That being said this team is starting to look like they cant wait to get out for a round of golf when the season ends. There needs to be youth movement and this years draft and free agency is going to be a very interesting time for the Flames organization.
One more game and the lexicon changes.
System becomes game plan.
Analytics becomes goals for and against.
Brouwerplay becomes an opportunity to score called power play.
Win becomes a situation where the Flames score more goals than the other team in the first three periods.
While changes may be required it would be interesting if the Flames could start the season with a defensive corpse that was intent on pushing the play and creating offensive opportunity. Something like:
Gio Hamilton
Kulak Brodie
Valimaki Anderson.
Then a forward group that is structured to go hard after the puck, maybe
Gaudreau, Monahan Foo
Bennett Jankowski Tkachuk
Lazar Backlund Frolik
Ferland Shore Dube
Then implement a basic game plan of play in the other teams end of the ice and fight before giving up every zone with adjustments depending on the opponent.
When it comes to a power play have enough confidence in the lines that they ice the first line and defense pairing followed by the second line and defense pairing. If the power play doesn’t score then how about the shutdown line against the opponents first response.
A penalty kill could looks like Backlund Frolik followed by Jankowski Lazar and (crazy idea) keep defense pairings together and use the most rested pairing to start the PK. Another crazy idea follow a penalty kill with the first line to try to take advantage of the momentum of a successful kill or stop the momentum in the case off a goal.
Dreaming is fun but probably boring old GG will be there next year and we will have plenty of opportunity to complain.
Nothing personal here, but why would you demote Ferland to the 4th line after he had a career-year, and in my opinion, helped Gaudreau and Monahan have the same? And replace him w/Lazar, who is barely a 4th liner, and only because he brings “energy”, is in the right place at the right time, but can’t score? I don’t get the fans seeming “hate” on Ferland from some of the fans here. And Foo plays a few good, yet meaningless games, and all of a sudden he, too, replaces Ferland?? These are moves I could see “GG” making.
Gaudreau-Monahan-Ferland is not the problem. The only player I’d swap w/Ferland on that line is Tkachuk. Perhaps a line of Bennett-Jankowski-Ferland could produce, though Bennett and Jankowski don’t “wow” w/their offencive skills, either. Maybe Ferland could help them. Or, go with Ferland-Backlund-Frolik (I could see them trying to move Frolik – don’t say I agree, as we have no depth), then with Bennett-Jankowski-Foo. Buy-out Brouwer , and go with Mangiapane-Shore-Hathaway as the 4th line. I know all this is based on the current roster.
Ultimately, this team needs an experienced coach to push some of these prima-donnas who don’t seem to mind losing. Look at how they ended the season. They screwed their fans. Lindy Ruff might be someone to talk to. Ditto Daryl Sutter. Sutter, like Queenville and Hitchcock (and Babcock, for that matter), is a proven winner, behind the bench. This cannot be argued. But I remember tossing out Jon Cooper and John Hynes’ names here a few years ago – not that I’m a soothsayer, but I read goo things about both. Looks what Cooper and Yzerman have done in Tampa. This should be what we go for, here.
BT is no Yzerman. And Burke is an Edsel. Obsolete.
I like Ferland’s game but think that Foo might be a better scoring influence. I think that a Ferland Shore Dube line might have some scoring potential and would run every other fourth line in the league. I also think that Lazar will turn out to be a great defensive forward and paired with Backlund and Frolik would shut down any line going. My suggestion is that they ice three dominate scoring lines and one shutdown line and I think they have that talent in the system right now.
Come Sunday morning, there better be 3 players on their way to Stockton. Andersson, Foo, and Gillies have a little more hockey to play, and should be in the thick of a playoff run by the Heat.
Go Heat Go!
Didn’t get to watch the game. Seen all the praise for Foos goal on here. Just went and checked out the highlights thinking it was going to be a seeet highlight reel goal!!! Are you kidding me, the puck went off his a$$ and into the net!!!! -36 in the last 10 games I guess have to try to find positives somewhere.
Are you saying Foo was playing like the vets on this team, dragging his a$$ on the ice? Look again. The puck deflected off his skate.
This team shoots and shoots and shoots and…. Well we know how that’s been working this year. Bad luck or whatever? Foo in the right place at the right time because of hard work and placing himself there? Well that turned into a goal…so call it luck or not…it worked. If this kind of player brings scoring luck, then we need more of it!!
The team shoots and shoots, mostly right into the goalie’s torso, because the goalie is in position and can see the shot coming. That’s the problem. We’re taking way too many dumb, no-hoper shots, because we’re badly coached. We need speed, set plays, strategy, fakery, give and gos, cross ice feeds, one timers etc.