Flames 5, Bruins 2 post-game embers: 3M line did that

It’s only been six games, so it’s definitely still far too early to make any real proclamations, but the Flames are kind of looking like a pretty good hockey team.

Both teams got off to good starts with plenty of back and forth action, but for the first little bit, it was Mike Smith who shone for the Flames, turning away Bruins chances until the skaters in front of him were able to get on the board. Michael Frolik, coming off of being a healthy scratch for the first time in a very long time, proved early on why he deserves to stay in the lineup.

If you’re pessimistic, though, then that would have offered up memories of the Flames’ game against St. Louis: score first, but give up two quick goals right after and completely fall out of the game. That didn’t happen this time, though; Smith continued to stand tall, and instead, it was the Flames with two quick goals of their own to build a comfortable lead in just the first period.

It isn’t just that, though; it’s the never quit attitude we’re seeing in this group. In a lesser year, giving up a goal immediately after failing to score on a lengthy five-on-three would have spelled disaster; instead, Frolik restored the three-goal lead, and both he and Elias Lindholm nearly added to it on a penalty kill immediately after. It got to the point that even when Brad Marchand cut the lead back to two, the Flames never really felt like they were in danger: their penalty kill stood tall, Smith was steady, and they were able to ride out the third period to a win.

Even when the warts creep into their game, they still look good.

The 3M line made its triumphant return. Its original focus was probably being the Flames needing a way to counter Patrice Bergeron’s line – it’s a very good line – but paying off as, evidently, Matthew Tkachuk, Mikael Backlund, and Frolik never forgot the chemistry they’ve exhibited over the past couple of seasons. Frolik was outstanding in his return to the lineup, scoring his first multi-goal game since Jan. 6, 2017 against Vancouver.

Milestones are awesome. Johnny Gaudreau scored the 100th goal of his career (I heard something about him being too short to play in the NHL?), while Juuso Valimaki netted his first. Not to be rude, because everyone develops at different rates or whatever, but there sure is something about a Finnish defenceman taken 16th overall scoring in the NHL before a Finnish defenceman taken fifth overall the year before has so much as stepped on NHL ice.

Really, this game showed off the level of depth the Flames can offer with their scoring: the 3M line was the hero, but they also got a bit of help from both the top line and the defence. It’ll be different every game, but they have a lot of threats out there at any time.

Smith has had his problems to start the season, shutout over the Predators aside. That wasn’t at all the case in this game, however, as he never really let the Bruins get into the game. His .923 save percentage – same as David Rittich over the Avalanche – is thus far his second best performance on the season, and against a pretty good team, at that.

Four penalties faced – including a lengthy five-on-three – and four penalties killed. The Flames didn’t give the Bruins much in the way of chances, and when they took their first penalty, they actually had the best scoring opportunities out of both teams. Their 83.3% penalty kill on the season is currently the ninth best in the NHL.

Four possibilities to score – including a lengthy five-on-three – and the Flames’ powerplay couldn’t muster up much of anything. On the bright side, they didn’t give up shorthanded chances the way the Bruins did, but they also allowed their first goal of the game right after their five-on-three was killed off, which isn’t typically ideal. Granted, a good powerplay is successful in one out of five tries, so you can’t always expect them to score, but their 17.2% success rate is currently 20th in the NHL – and considering how early on this team is one of the top goal-scoring teams in the league, you’d think they’d have a better powerplay.

The Flames entered the third period with a two-goal lead, and seemed to kind of sit back on it. Their 5v5 corsi confirms it: 29.17%, compared to being well over 50% the two periods prior. Granted, credit to the Bruins because they had to fight back, and credit to the Flames because they didn’t let them score, but you’d hope for better play when protecting a lead.

Gaudreau missed the final roughly 10-ish minutes of the game after sustaining a hit from Charlie McAvoy, and there’s no better way to ruin the taste of a sweet victory than with the possibility that your team’s top offensive player could miss time. On the plus side of things, Gaudreau was able to get off the ice on his own, and it’s a really good thing the NHL’s concussion spotter was doing their job and looking out for Gaudreau’s best interests by removing him from the game, but the Flames’ forward group does look less formidable without Gaudreau out there.

(And no, the answer to protecting Gaudreau isn’t dressing someone who will beat someone else up; the damage is already done. Remember when Micheal Ferland was skating on a line with Brian McGrattan during his first NHL game and Anton Volchenkov went and concussed him anyway? The answer is going to be the NHL enacting punishments and policies that make players think twice before committing such acts [though honestly, McAvoy’s hit seemed to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to Gaudreau being good and him wanting to make sure he didn’t have a play, not like a Mike Matheson on Elias Pettersson kind of thing]. But seeing as how the league just finally got around to suspending Tom Wilson for 20 games, who knows how long that’s gonna take?)

51.04% – The Flames’ 5v5 corsi on the night. Rough third period as they let the Bruins back into the game, but their first period was a 56.82% and their second 60.71%. The main takeaway from these numbers is that there’s reason to believe the Flames can keep this level of play up.

54.17% – Backlund’s 5v5 corsi when playing against Bergeron. That jumped up to 70.00% away from Bergeron, but Backlund spent most of his time facing off against one of the top two-way forwards in the NHL for a reason: he’s the Flames’ shutdown centre, and Bergeron needed shutting down. (He did factor into both of the Bruins’ goals.) Backlund did a good job, though that’s hardly surprising at this point.

3 – The team lead for most number of shots on goal during the game. Frolik was one of the players who put three pucks on net. So was Valimaki! Also: Gaudreau and Backlund.

9 – Both Gaudreau and Tkachuk lead the Flames with nine points each. So, that’s interesting. This is expected from Gaudreau, but it’s going to be really curious to see where Tkachuk ends up this season.

+5 – The Flames’ goal differential six games into the season. The Ducks and Canucks are the only other Pacific Division teams with positive goal differentials.

16:07 – Frolik’s ice time on the night. Jerked around with fourth line minutes no more (or at least, not for now): Frolik was playing far too well to give him his fourth sub-10 minute game in a row. He got bonafide top six minutes once again.

9:59 – Garnet Hathaway’s ice time, the least any Flames skater played on the night. How’s that for throwing four lines out there?

15:20 – Michael Stone’s ice time. Less than the 15:47 his partner, Valimaki, got. And less than the 17:12 Noah Hanifin’s partner, Rasmus Andersson, had. Granted, the Flames splitting up their all-rookie pairing is likely having an impact on the minutes Stone gets, but I remain extremely curious how things are going to shake out once Travis Hamonic returns to the lineup, because now both rookies are getting more ice than Stone is.

Everything came together for this one: Smith gave his skaters a chance to get him a lead to work with. The Flames’ skaters scored plenty enough to do just that. Smith held it together. Everything worked out great, and we’re really starting to see the effects of overhauling the forward group. Hopefully it keeps up, because this is fun, and this is a team that looks like it believes in itself.