Calgary Flames Post-Game: Flames win a Wednesday night shootout in Winnipeg

The Calgary Flames sent a plane full of hockey players to Winnipeg on Wednesday night to play a pre-season outing against the Jets. Their lineup was chock-full of AHLers and up-and-comers, but so were the Jets. The Flames looked strong, carried play for long stretches, and probably could have run away with this game.

But the Flames were the better team in extra time, beating the Jets in a shootout by a 3-2 score.

The Jets opened the scoring midway through the first period, off a really nice little passing sequence. Jets forwards Jansen Harkins and Parker Ford executed a superb little give-and-go, ending with Harkins dekeing through traffic and tucking the puck past Dustin Wolf to give themselves a 1-0 lea.d

Late in the opening period, though, the Flames evened things up during a four-on-four sequence. MacKenzie Weegar’s initial shot was stopped by Connor Hellebuyck, but Dryden Hunt buried the rebound to make it 1-1.

Aside from the opening goal, though the Flames carried play early. The second period was more even, with the main “highlight” being a match penalty give to Flames forward Martin Pospisil for a check to the head of Jets forward Cole Perfetti.

That match penalty, combined with a Jonathan Aspirot minor, led to a lengthy Winnipeg two-man advantage. The Flames’ trio of Ilya Solovyov, Nick DeSimone and Cole Schwindt killed off most of the penalties, but Nino Niederreiter set up Ford for a one-timer with two seconds left on the five-on-three that beat Wolf to give the Jets a 2-1 lead.

But the Flames battled back after a power play of their own. Niederreiter had to rush off to get a replacement for a broken stick and Connor Zary took advantage of the extra space, toe-dragging around a defender and rifling a wrister top-corner past Jets netminder Oskari Salminen to tie the game at 2-2. (The goal was scored two seconds after the Flames PP expired.)

Play went end to end during the overtime period, but three-on-three solved nothing. Andrew Mangiapane scored in the shootout and Wolf shut the door at the other end to earn a 3-2 shootout victory.

We’ll bang this drum a bit, but remove a few moments of flat play and poor judgement, and the Flames almost run away with this game. A few miscues and poor discipline kept this thing closer on the scoreboard than play actually was.

A few road players stood out. Among them: Connor Zary, Matt Coronato, Adam Ruzicka, Andrew Mangiapane, Dryden Hunt and MacKenzie Weegar.

Man, the Flames probably could’ve run away with this game on the scoreboard, but Hellebuyck was good and Pospisil’s match penalty really disrupted things and handed the Jets a lot of momentum.

Here’s how the Flames lined up:

Dustin Wolf started and went the distance. Oscar Dansk was his backup.

MacKenzie Weegar, Nikita Zadorov and Andrew Mangiapane served as alternate captains.

Adam Klapka fought Tyrel Bauer in the first period.

The Flames are back in action on Friday night when they host the Edmonton Oilers.