Beyond the Boxscore: After fighting back for the win Calgary sees themselves just outside playoff race

The Calgary Flames never let the foot off the gas in the third period leading them into an overtime victory. The Seattle Kraken pushed them to their limits in the second period, but the Flames were able to keep it close enough to crawl back in. The belief of being in every game is evident on the squad whose team play has taken a massive jump the previous two weeks. Don’t look now but the Flames will wake up just two points out of a wildcard playoff spot, making things all that much more interesting in Calgary.

It’s a Team Game – The Flames have found some semblance of a structure in their own zone, collapsing into a box and giving up the outside. It’s a good way to limit high danger chances but makes for a pretty stale breakout. It’s working for the Flames though as they’ve finally found some chemistry on all their lines making good passes to get through the middle of the ice. They just sometimes lack the speed to avoid a dump-in. I’m impressed by this teams ability to have fought back so much already – they are hitting a stride with their play.

Corsi King – Andrew Mangiapane (53.30%) lead the way with Huberdeau (53.29%) behind him. Coach Huska could sense Huberdeau was going and fed his line over 18 minutes of 5v5 ice time. Mikael Backlund (52.53%) has been a reliable partner for Huberdeau so far. The Flames got peppered with chances in the second period so overall corsi metrics are lower than you’d normally like – the high danger chances being even despite that is a huge win for Calgary.

Corsi Clown – Walker Duehr (16.42%) came in the lineup for Ružička but hardly played. He kind of lost that jump he had to start the season, it currently resides with Pospisil (46.79%). Calgary let the Kraken on the outside of their zone for long stretches of play but found a way to keep the ice tilted their way in the third period. If they can sort out the mid-game lull, they won’t need to resort to a cardiac comeback attempt.

Taken By Chance – Connor Zary (74.18 SCF% // 100 HDCF%) led the way in terms of ratios while the pairing of Zadorov (49.16% // 75.03%) and DeSimone (56.09% // 85.73%) both helped get 5 high danger chances in total. All-in-all the Flames do really well here despite giving up a lot of the puck possession. They certainly have found more ways to be creative and move the puck through the middle of the ice. It’s made them finding passing lanes and shooting opportunities better than when they were losing all those games in a row.

xGF% – Not everyone has found their groove – some players like Dillon Dubé (25.81%) you wonder if they’ll ever advance or evolve into something more consistently useful to the team. It can be Jekyll and Hyde with him and this year it’s been more Hyde. It’s one thing to give up chances it’s another to have almost double against you what the others who struggled did – Dubé needs to sort things out.

In The Crease – I wasn’t too particularly enthralled to hear of the goaltending match-up before the game started but I wasn’t shocked with the outcome. Both goaltenders let in more than expected, the Daccord switch was a wrench I didn’t expect but it’s not like people gameplan their weeks around beating Joey Daccord. Vladar can still win games where the other team is going to give up goals, but the tight knit low-scoring affairs don’t follow him around.