Post-Game: Flames come up empty at Rogers Place

The Calgary Flames are a depleted team, missing Mark Giordano and Mikael Backlund. After playing on Thursday and Saturday, they were a tired team when they visited the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night. The Flames could never quite get their legs under them in a 1-0 loss to the Oilers at Rogers Place.

So, not a ton of things actually happened in this game.

The only goal of the game followed a Derek Ryan offensive zone turnover and an Edmonton rush into the Flames zone. TJ Brodie lost track of Connor McDavid, and Alex Chiasson was able to feed him for a lightning fast one-timer that beat David Rittich to make it 1-0 Edmonton.

Anthony Peluso fought Milan Lucic in the first period, just following the McDavid goal. Lucic hit Travis Hamonic and it was arguably a late hit. Peluso looked overwhelmed and lost his helmet before the linesman stopped the fight, for the benefit of all involved.

The Oilers controlled the first period (shots 16-10, chances 7-4), but the Flames came back a bit in the second period (shots 10-7, chances 8-6). But they took three penalties in succession in the third period and ran out of gas. Edmonton out-shot them 7-4 in the period, though the Flames out-chanced them 3-2.

Remember that Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” episode where Mr. Burns puts Homer’s brain into a robot? That was this game for the Flames. As Mr. Burns declared: the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

The Flames were playing their third game in four nights. They had no Mark Giordano or Mikael Backlund. They looked equal parts exhausted, out of sync, and over-matched against a rested Oilers squad. It happens. This was what’s known as a “schedule loss,” compounded by the Flames’ roster limitations.

Rittich made a ton of big saves and kept the Flames in this game for the first 30 minutes.

Down 1-0, the Flames had a second period power play that generated one shot and an early third period power play that generated one Flames shot (and one Oilers shot). Had they buckled down on either of those man advantages, this could’ve been a different game.

Bill Peters’ Line Shuffler kicked on midway through the game. Brodie and Rasmus Andersson were broken up, with Brodie paired with Travis Hamonic and Andersson paired with Noah Hanifin.

Peluso was largely benched for the duration of the game, suiting up for five shifts and 2:28 of total ice time.

The Flames (19-10-2) fly home and are off on Monday. They host the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night.