Post-Game: All She Wrote

The 2013-14 Calgary Flames season ended tonight. Game 82 was a loss to the Vancouver Canucks. The game was the first NHL appearance for Johnny Gaudreau and Bill Arnold, which allowed everyone of us who’ve watched all these games something different to look for.

Here’s how it happened.

The flow of the first period was decent, with the Flames faring fairly well at even-strength but failing to capitalize. The Canucks, on the other hand, were opportunistic and made the most of their chances. Daniel Sedin opened the scoring mid-way through the period. Then he scored on a power-play (caused by a Kevin Westgarth roughing call) off a puck that ping-ponged around in the Flames zone. Calgary led in shots 11-10.

The second was when things fell apart. Vancouver scored three times – Frankie Corrado’s 1st, Ryan Kesler scoring off a lost face-off and a lost board-battle, and Yannick Weber scoring on a late-period power-play. Karri Ramo was chased after the fourth Canucks goal, and I must admit I questioned the point of starting him at all. He had nothing left to prove this year. That power-play goal? It came off a bit of a scary play that initially seemed a bit innocuous…

Paul Byron, going after the puck, awkwardly sent Daniel Sedin into the glass. Sedin got stretchered off and Byron got a game misconduct (and the Canucks got a five-minute PP). Sedin did regain both consciousness and feeling in his extremities, so thankfully the scary moment was the worst thing that came of it. But still, a bit disconcerting to see each guy end their season in that manner.

Oh, and Johnny Gaudreau scored his first NHL goal, tipping a Chris Breen shot (that was previously tipped by Joe Colborne).

The Canucks out-shot Calgary 11-3, which was roughly an accurate reflection of the play in that period.

Nobody scored in the third period. Neither team seemed particularly engaged, and thankfully (outside of a shot-block by Kris Russell that seemed painful) nobody else came out of the game with any noticeable maladies. Calgary out-shot Vancouver 8-2 in the final frame of the season.

To be blunt, they failed to take advantage of a Canucks club that played (and lost) the night before. Sure, they were missing some key players, but the Flames completely failed to dictate the play – especially in the second period – and the result was one of their least inspired outings of the season.

Hopefully they’ll get out of the gate better next game.

Oh wait, nevermind…

Johnny Gaudreau didn’t have an outstanding game, but on the sliding scale of a blowout loss, there were a bunch of positives to take out of his first NHL game. He got a goal, had some nice passes and was surprisingly effective on the forecheck and protecting the puck in the offensive zone.

A solid NHL game for an outstanding collegiate player, and hopefully the first of many.

That’s all she wrote for the 2013-14 Calgary Flames season, gang. The Flames finish the year 35-40-7 for 77 points. Up next is the Draft Lottery on Tuesday and the run-up to the Draft. Oh, and the Abbotsford Heat’s quest for the AHL’s Calder Cup.

There’s tons of stuff left to talk about, but from all of us at the site, thanks for visiting and reading, discussing and (occasionally) arguing with us about the Calgary Flames. The only thing more exciting to us than writing about hockey is knowing that people are actually reading and actively caring about what we’re writing about. You guys make this site possible, and we can’t thank you enough.

But enough of all that mushy stuff, we have a busy week (and months) ahead of us.