Flames Post-Game: Fledgling Flames devoured by the Kraken in Seattle

The Calgary Flames headed to the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday night for an exhibition encounter with the Seattle Kraken. The Flames sent a lineup low on star power to Seattle, and unfortunately that crew ended up getting out-worked by the home side.

The aspiring Flames fell short, dropping a 3-0 pre-season loss to the Kraken.

As they did Sunday in Vancouver, the Flames sent a very fourth-line and third-pairing-heavy grouping to play many of Seattle’s regulars.

Dillon Dube [A] – Cody Eakin [A] – Walker Duehr
Adam Ruzicka – Connor Zary – Sonny Milano
Jakob Pelletier – Ben Jones – Matthew Phillips
Alex Gallant – Cole Schwindt – Adam Klapka

Connor Mackey – Nicolas Meloche
Dennis Gilbert – Nick DeSimone
Juuso Valimaki – Yan Kuznetsov

Dan Vladar started in net, backed up by Oscar Dansk. Vladar played the full game.

Seattle Thunderbirds forward Lucas Ciona (a Flames prospect) made the trip as the extra forward, but didn’t dress. (We’d expect to hear he’s been reassigned back to junior anytime now.)

Some line shuffling happened later in the game as the Flames reverted away from using Ruzicka as a winger: Milano-Zary-Schwindt, Pelletier-Ruzicka-Phillips and Gallant-Jones-Klapka were used, while the Dube-Eakin-Duehr trio remained intact.

The Flames were generally second-best in this game. Their breakouts lacked structure, their puck management wasn’t great, their power play was quite disorganized, and they tended to play much of the game without the puck.

After Vladar held the Kraken without a goal for the first half of the game, he got tagged twice in the latter part of the second period.

A Dennis Gilbert turnover led to a Kraken rush into the Flames zone, which was partially disrupted, and a cycle play, which wasn’t. Vince Dunn found Daniel Sprong in the high slot for a feed and one-timer that beat Vladar to give Seattle a 1-0 lead.

Late in the period, Dillon Dube turned the puck over in the dying seconds of a power play, leading to a Seattle two-on-one rush with Jared McCann and Jaden Schwartz facing Juuso Valimaki. Valimaki couldn’t block the pass, and Schwartz buried it to give Seattle a shorthanded goal and a 2-0 lead.

The Flames had some looks in the third period, but couldn’t bury anything. Andrew Poturalski added an empty-netter late in regulation to give Seattle a 3-0 victory.

Without Vladar in net, this game could’ve been worse.

As far as skaters go, Zary led all forwards in ice time and generally looked quite good. Klapka, Phillips, Milano, Ruzicka, Mackey and Jones had their strong moments, as well. But generally-speaking, the folks who played outside of the blue paint weren’t quite up to their goaltender’s quality.

The Flames are back in pre-season action on Wednesday night when they host the Edmonton Oilers at the Saddledome.