Flames 6, Panthers 0 post-game embers: Kneel before your Sam

Photo Credit: Sergei Belski/USA TODAY Sports

The Flames played a very composed, overall dominant game of hockey. Their 6-0 win was the greatest margin they’ve won by this season, passing their previous best, which was a 4-0 win over the Colorado Avalanche.

This win was very different from that one, though. While the victory over the Avs was a victory of depth, there’s one player who stole the entire show against the Panthers, and he only needed one period in which to do it.

Sean Monahan hasn’t yet scored a hat trick. Johnny Gaudreau has topped out with a mere three goals in one game (although he has done it three times, and he’s had a four-point game, too).

Well, Sam Bennett matched Gaudreau with a four point game of his own. This time, though, he did something nobody else on the Flames has done in well over a decade: scored four goals in one game.

While we’re at it, let’s just get all of the other really cool, historical stuff out of the way.

There are a lot of expectations riding on Bennett’s shoulders. He went without a goal for 18 games straight; now, he’s scored five in his last two. The playoffs last season were his coming out party, but if it’s possible to have a second one, well, this game was probably it.

He has an absolutely incredible shot that was well on display for his first, third, and fourth goals. This is where he worked exceptionally well with Mikael Backlund and Jiri Hudler on his line: Backlund is great at defensive play and getting the puck into the offensive zone. Hudler is a playmaker. And then there’s Bennett who can finish, and do so much more.

Hudler had two assists on the night, and looked much more like the Hudler who had a career season last year than before. This isn’t to say that’s the real Hudler, or that we can expect a point per game pace from him again any time soon, but him playing alongside a rookie with tremendous upside worked before, so…

And if Bennett has to play on the wing, Backlund is probably the right guy for the job. If anything, Backlund’s assist on his second goal showed exactly why: it’s rather difficult to score if you aren’t in the offensive zone. Backlund’s play drives the puck north, and Bennett is of such talent he can do more with it.

Play Bennett with talented, established NHLers. He now has 10 goals and 19 points through 41 games, and is tied for sixth in team scoring. As we enter the second half of the season, he may very well be someone to watch out for.

Micheal Ferland had four points in his last five games prior to the affair against the Panthers. While he failed to put up any points in his most recent contest, he still played well enough that it’s surprising he didn’t have a goal or two (or three, for that matter) himself.

Ferland was driving the net, and he has the hands to just be able to tuck the puck in, if only it had worked for him. Not that the Flames needed him to score last night, but it would have been nice to see him get more on the board.

If anything, he’s almost doing what Bennett himself was not too long ago: everything but actually scoring. According to War on Ice, Ferland tied Bennett with two high-danger scoring chances for the most on the Flames. That’s obviously good company to be included with.

There’s no reason to take him off the top line any time soon, even if Michael Frolik’s anticipated return will give the Flames further options.

There are players on teams you just know aren’t slated to spend much time on the ice. For the Flames, that usually entails guys like Brandon Bollig and Deryk Engelland, who have more specialty roles than anything else.

But when you jump out to a four-goal lead in the first period, and maintain said lead without ever giving up much over the course of an entire 60 minutes, there’s something to be said for that. Why exhaust or risk fluke injury to your stars when you don’t have to?

Bollig played 12:06 against the Panthers, the least out of everybody on the Flames. When your least-used player is playing 12 minutes, well, that’s a good thing; it’s a season high for Bollig, and the most he’s played since the Flames’ 2014-15 regular season finale against the Winnipeg Jets back on April 11, 2015, when he was on the ice for 14:34. (As far as actually meaningful games go, it’s the most he’s played since he spent 12:54 on the ice against the Arizona Coyotes back on Nov. 29, 2014: a 3-0 win.)

Engelland, meanwhile, played the least out of all defencemen with 16:09 spent on the ice. Sean Monahan was the only forward who played more than him, playing 16:21 – every other Flames forward was under 16 minutes, although seven of them (Monahan, Granlund, Backlund, Gaudreau, Bennett, Jooris, and Ferland) all played over 15 minutes.

T.J. Brodie, Mark Giordano, and Dennis Wideman were the only players to play over 20 minutes; Brodie, who led the way with 22:21, had his third lowest ice time of the season – and that’s including a game in which he sat in the penalty box for four minutes. There wasn’t as much use for the Flames’ number one guy.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that Dougie Hamilton’s two assists made him the 12th player of the 2011 NHL draft class to reach 100 points.

It isn’t surprising to see teams that go up by such huge leads early into a game eventually let the other team back into it, but the Flames never really did. The Flames dominated the first period, with 20 corsi events for compared to the Panthers’ 13, but in periods two and three, they were both firmly 50% CF teams.

Mind, the Panthers only had single shot counts each period while the Flames always reached double digits, but Florida wasn’t as terrible throughout the entire game as they were in the first period. 

This includes the third period, in which they started off by holding the Flames to zero shot attempts over nearly the first six minutes. Of course, all the Flames had to do at that point was sit back and protect their lead, but this is a team that, over roughly a five and a half minute stretch, still generated 14 shot attempts, even though they were leading 5-0 at the time.

It was a dominant, controlling game from start to finish. No sitting back at any point, and that’s with everybody in the lineup playing. The Flames played a perfect game.

Jonas Hiller got a shutout in his first start since Dec. 12, a 5-4 overtime win over the New York Rangers. That was a game the Flames, who had a 4-1 lead early in the third period, should have unquestionably had, but they let it slip away, in part due to Hiller’s efforts. Hiller didn’t have much to work with, but this time, he came up huge when called upon. With the right shot, the Panthers could have forced their way back into the game, and Hiller never gave them that.

It can’t have been an easy thing to do after sitting for a month when used to being a starter throughout your career, but he did it.