Post Game: Carter Hutton Leaves Calgary Hurtin’

 

 

Carter Hutton was actually just okay, I just really wanted to lead with that headline.

Coming off a great game last night against Carolina where Karri Ramo was crazy unreal good, the Flames looked to take that momentum and convert it into something we haven’t seen from this team quite some time: a winning streak.

A 2 game winning streak is as meager as it gets, but we’ll take what we can get, will we not, Citizens? (We will)

The Nashville Predators had a thing or two or four to say about that though, and ultimately they stood in the way of your Calgary Flames just enough tonight to dash our hopes and dreams forever except for the one where they draft Same Reinhart.

Read the let’s hope really well written review of the Flames 4-2 loss after the jump!

A frenzied pace to start the game, the Flames and #Perds looked to establish the tone in the first period, as Nashville outshot Calgary 15-10, though there was no action to speak of until the end of the period, as Shea Weber Smashvilled one past Karri Ramo SECONDS after I was tweeting about how great Karri Ramo is.

 

This is fair.

But the Flames wouldn’t let the goal by the Preds captain beat them (they let other goals ultimately beat them), as just minutes later, Lee "Lee" Stempniak, who had not scored in 17 games, who had enough chances to score 30 goals in the last 17 games, had the chance to score on empty nets and didn’t in 17 games, scored his first goal in 17 games after cashing in on a Jiri Hudler pass. Stemper Fi’s line with Hudler and Demigod Mikael Backlund just steamrolled the entire state of Tennessee for that shift and a better part of the first period, and you knew it was a matter of time before one of them would cash. It was pretty to watch.

Not one thing happened in the second period. Actually, we saw some pretty good hockey from both sides, just nothing particularly noteworthy to recap here. David Poile’s team outshot Bob Hartley’s team 9-6, but both goalies were about a B+ so the score remained tied.

The third period for the Flames was about as sloppy as a Justin Bieber house egging. Some fugly defending (thanks, Bouma) led to Ryan Ellis strutting into the slot and clapping a bomb past Ramo just under the crossbar to give the Preds the lead they would never relinquish. Paul Byron took a penalty on the next shift and less than 2 minutes later our heroes were down 2. We thought the Flames had pulled within one after Oh Captain My Captain Mark Giordano knocked a puck out of mid air and poked it past Carter Hutton, but the linesmen deemed Gio brought it down with a high stick, and thus the goal would not count. It was not a high stick, but we’re not going to let a little bit of pesky officiating accountability stand in the way of a quality loss, are we?

We are not.

Viktor Stalberg put the Preds up 3 miday through the third and I decided that would be as good a time as any to start this post game recap.

I’m glad I didn’t, because Mikael Backlund made things interesting, doing that superhuman thing he’s been doing over the past few games or so. That A looks good on him, doesn’t it? There was still 6 minutes and change left at that point of the contest, which didn’t seem right, but the Flames in the end were never able to take advantage of the remaining time, and as such, that was the ball game.

Boo.

I like Memphis better.

Not enough feet moving. 

To be honest, I have no idea why the Flames lost this game. No one was particularly bad. The 4th line played very little in this one, which is good, but as a result you’re asking for an excessive amount of ice time for your other three lines, but they more or less seemed up to the task.

Sometimes you just don’t get the breaks. The Preds did on this night (and credit to them, they were good), and that was the difference.

hahaha, I never get tired of that picture.

IT’S JIRI HUDLER!

Sometimes when the team loses you can be hard pressed to find the diamond in the rough that is the Red Warrior. Tonight, not so much. I thought Hudler was just flying out there tonight, and just made things happen whenever he was on the ice. He played over 22 minutes with Backlund and Stempniak, and wjenever he had the puck, the game belonged to him.

There’s a good chance Hudler’s one of the guys that gets traded at the deadline, and it makes sense why, as he’s playing the best hockey of his career and is not necessarily ever going to be this good ever again, but man, if it ever happens, I am going to miss that dude. He’s fun to watch when you’re not limiting his game by giving him garbage linemates.

KUDOS TO YOU, HOODS.

No winning streak. This is why we can’t have nice things. 

The Flames head home tonight, I think, and with the CHL Top Prospects Game taking place at yonder Saddledome tomorrow night, the Flames don’t get back at it until Thursday against, I don’t know, someone, I haven’t looked that far ahead (this one really got phoned in today, hey?)

THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW!