Flames Need To Win Faceoffs Tonight

The Flames played a pretty solid game in Game 1, gradually getting better throughout the game in most respects. Heck, the Corsi battle was even!

One area where they struggled, though, was the face-off circle.

Of 16 possible match-ups, one never happened, one was a tie and seven were won by Vancouver.

Backlund and Monahan got schooled by Henrik Sedin, but Monahan was also edged by Horvat, only beating Nick Bonino head-to-head. And Bonino lost the head-to-head match-up against everybody.

The difficulty for Calgary is that the Canucks have last change, and that the Flames top line’s success is likely dependent on getting the heck away from the Sedins. I suspect in Calgary, you’ll see a lot of Stajan’s line with Ferland and Jones pounding the heck out of the Sedins and wearing them down. But with Willie Desjardins having last call on lines, we’re seeing a lot of strength-versus-strength with Sedins facing the Flames top trio or them facing the Backlund/Bennett/Colborne line quite a bit, based on the face-off frequency.

And considering how good Henrik Sedin is at face-offs, I’m not sure they’d necessarily want to throw Stajan to the wolves and waste the time of their most-veteran, best face-off taking player.

But keep an eye on face-offs tonight. It was one of the few things the Canucks had a clear edge in, and could be something they use to build upon for the rest of the series.