Beyond the Boxscore: Calgary Flames win a goal filled affair against the Arizona Coyotes

The Calgary Flames got into a high scoring shot-for-shot battle with the Arizona Coyotes and were able to scrape up enough offence to find the win. The goals weren’t all conventional – this certainly wasn’t a goaltending battle by any means – but the Flames really jumped on the upper side of the shooting percentage. They did a lot of really good work along the boards keeping plays alive and coming in from down low to attack the crease. The Coyotes kept their recent run of being a better-quality opponent going only to come up short a save. A really close battle between two teams very close in the standings.

It’s a Team Game – It’s been a long while since the Flames had a stat line like this one. It clearly shows the Coyotes had more possession of the puck but the Flames defended well enough to actually seize the high danger advantage. Let them run around with it on the perimeter all they want – as long as you can shift your coverages properly and keep your opponent pressed to the outside it doesn’t much matter, they have it instead of you. It involves needing to be opportunistic when given the chance but that all worked out in Calgary’s favour in this one. Not what you regularly want to see from a team, but these games are starting to matter less and less as the season winds down.

Corsi King – Martin Pospisil (63.31%) and his excellent forechecking skills were on display all night long. His line was one of the most lethal as he and Kadri (55.72%) were the only Flames to see over 20+ shot attempts while deployed. As the lower percentages indicate they saw almost the same amount back too, but that’s where the danger level of the chances comes into play. MacKenzie Weegar (55.22%) was the third and only Flame to finish with a positive ratio here – everyone else got out-attempted at 5v5. Andrew Mangiapane (22.02%) was the low man as questions of his future with the team start to arise.

Taken By Chance – The only line for the Flames that was head and shoulders above their competition all night were the K-Pop trio. Kuzmenko (43.12 SCF% // 76.01 HDCF%) continues to ride a crazy high shooting percentage binge but if someone’s calling for a trade, they aren’t usually asking how they ask how many. Having him be the benefit of tremendous 5v5 play driving from the other two guys – a combination that I would be very hesitant to split up at any time in Kadri (49.15% // 76.01%) and Pospisil (60.90% // 79.76%). There’s a logjam on wing and some playing time needed to advance both Pelletier and Coronato (34.09% // 0%) in their careers – a veteran worth something in young trade value back really fits the mould for what this team needs to do.

xGF% – Mangiapane (8.23%) really has not been himself since he last sat out with an injury. He had that long run next to Coleman and Backlund (43.83%) where his night over night impact was getting back to that middle-six level the team needed it to be at, but since the injury he’s been invisible at 5v5. Shoutout to Walker Duehr (50.36%) who for the first time in a very long time actually stood out based on the speed of his play and his involvement in scoring chances. Too many nights this season where he was a passenger running around in his own zone for 5-8 minutes.

In The Crease – Wolf won’t be writing home about this one anytime soon, but he did settle down after the team got back into the game. He still gets the win to try and bring his record on the season to .500 before everything in Calgary is a wrap. The save percentage and goals against average certainly took a shot, but in the end, he still was the winning goaltender and had to make some pretty impressive saves to do it. 2.72 expected goals against with over 4 getting behind him at 5v5.