Post-Game: Falling to the Stars

For the second consecutive games, the Calgary Flames played a pretty solid hockey game but couldn’t score enough goals. They lost a tight-checking battle by a 2-1 score to the visiting Dallas Stars.

The Flames carried much of the play in the first period, but Dallas ended up opening the scoring. With Austin Czarnik in the box for tripping, the Flames’ penalty kill was caught standing around on a Stars line change – which allowed Alexander Radulov to deke through basically the entire team and beat David Rittich with a nice move five-hole to make it 1-0.

Shots were 12-9 Flames and chances 6-5 Flames.

Neither team scored in the second period, which was highlighted (or low-lighted) by a Flames near-injury and a Lightning injury. Elias Lindholm went into the boards awkwardly after a collision with Roman Polak.

He left the game for evaluation, but returned before the end of the period. Ben Bishop left the game midway through the second period with a lower body injury. Anton Khudobin came in to replace him.

Shots were 10-10 and scoring chances 12-9 Flames.

The Flames pressed in the first half of the third period. But Derek Ryan took a penalty and Miro Heiskanen took advantage of some chaos and confusion among the home side after a shot block to beat Rittich with a wrist shot to make it 2-0 Stars.

The home side pulled Rittich for an extra attacker and TJ Brodie beat Khudobin with a wrist shot to cut Dallas’ lead to 2-1.

But that’s as close as the Flames got. Shots were 14-4 Flames and chances 7-2 Flames in the final period.

As with their loss to the Kings on Monday, the Flames just couldn’t find a way to turn zone time into dangerous scoring chances – or dangerous scoring chances into many goals.

It’s also not terribly creative to note, but the Flames lost the special teams battle 2-0. Considering how tight the Stars played defensively at even strength, it’s tough to win games in March and April when the special teams battle is that lopsided.

He gave up a pair of power play goals, but Rittich was very solid and did his best to hold the Flames in this game. Mark Giordano also had nine shots, leading his club.

The second Dallas goal was a tough one. With how the Flames were fighting to get into good shooting lanes at five on five throughout this game, a two goal deficit seemed too tall an order on this evening.

The new lines lasted two periods, with Bill Peters hitting the reset button with the Flames down a goal heading into the third period.

The Flames (47-23-7) are back in action on Friday night when they host the Anaheim Ducks in their second-last home date of the regular season.