Post-Game: Afternoon Delight

There’s something about the Calgary Flames and afternoon games. In recent years, it always seems like weird stuff happens in afternoon games – whether they’re played in Calgary or on the road. Thus, it was probably a comfort to the home side that this game wasn’t overly crazy aside from an offensive outburst. The Flames played a really great first period and held on for a 5-2 victory over the visiting New York Islanders.

The opening period was full of pep and energy for the Flames early, as they generated a bunch of good rushes but just couldn’t beat Thomas Greiss. Finally, roughly 15 minutes into the game, they figured the Islanders out. What followed? Four goals in 4:40.

Michael Frolik finished off a really nice sequence by the top line (3M) and top pairing (Giordano & Hamilton), where they generated roughly four or five good scoring chances in rapid succession. The final one, from Frolik, was off a rebond where he was able to careen the puck into the net off of Greiss’ inside leg to make it 1-0.

On the very next shift, T.J. Brodie jumped into the rush, skated the puck beneath the Islanders red line and bonked the puck in off of Greiss’ back foot to make it 2-0. It looked like he was trying to pass it into the slot, but a goal is a goal.

A couple shifts later, the top line was involved in an offensive zone board scrum with the Isles. Ferland collected the loose puck from that scrum, skated towards the slot and beat Greiss with a nice wrister to make it 3-0.

Finally, the Gaudreau line got sprung on a three-on-one and Gaudreau fed Sean Monahan for a tap-in to make it 4-0.

Shots were 21-8 for the home side.

The Islanders changed goalies to begin the second, putting young Jean-Francois Berube in goal. The Isles were better than they were in the first, but the Flames seemed fairly content to hang back and defend for the most part. They got one back, as John Tavares bonked in a rebound to make it 4-1, but otherwise they didn’t threaten too much. Shots were 10-9 Islanders in the second.

The Flames and Islanders each added a goal in the third period. Kris Versteeg got a goal off a nice three-on-one rush – caused by Josh Ho Sang and Travis Hamonic colliding in the Calgary zone – which gave every Flames forward line a goal.

Jason Chimera scored with a nice top-corner wrister from the face-off circles in the Flames zone to make it 5-2. The Islanders had a two-man advantage for a bit in the third and then pulled their goalie, but just couldn’t get anything in the net. Shots were 17-7 for the Islanders.

To be honest? They seemed befuddled by the Islanders’ defensive zone play and by Greiss for a good portion of the fist period. But they figured things out, started playing with the puck more along the boards and behind the net, and the Islanders opened up shooting and passing lanes for them.

Once they got themselves a lead, they were savvy enough in their own end (and got good enough goaltending) that they were able to ride this one out.

The Ferland goal to make it 3-0 was probably the back-breaker for the Islanders. It gave the Flames a big lead, dug the Isles a big hole, and gave the home side the breathing room to just roll lines and take it easy for the remaining 40 minutes of play.

Let’s break tradition and go with a collective six-man unit: Mikael Backlund, Matthew Tkachuk, Michael Frolik, Dougie Hamilton, Mark Giordano and Brian Elliott. The skaters were really good early on, while the netminder held them in this one as the Isles pushed late in the game.

When the Flames:

The Flames were 24-24-3, at the .500 mark, after their January 24 stinker in Montreal. Now they’re 10 games over .500.

“I thought we used the back of the net really well a few times. And again, winning battles, catching them. Ferly’s shot’s a great shot, from pretty far out but it’s a great shot. We sorta caught them in their own zone. That’s where we have to play teams. We can’t get into track meets, we give up too much when we do that. When we play simple, we can have some good zone time and dominate..” – Flames captain Mark Giordano on the team’s adjustments in the Islanders zone in the first period.

The Flames magic number to clinch began the night at 14.5. Their win drops it to any combination of 13.5 Flames wins or Kings losses clinching a playoff berth for the local sports team.

The Flames (36-26-4) are off tomorrow and then have two days of practices to ready themselves for a Thursday evening match-up with the Montreal Canadiens.