Post-Game: Flames grab a point from the Bruins

On Tuesday night in Boston, the Calgary Flames were not especially good. They hung in there, but Boston beat them 5-2. On Monday afternoon in Calgary, the Flames fared slightly better. While they couldn’t generate a ton offensively, the Flames were held in their game by goaltender David Rittich and salvaged a point from a 2-1 overtime loss.

It’s their 18th loss on home ice this season, one more than they had all of the 2016-17 campaign.

The story of this game was turnovers. The Flames were not particularly great in the first period, getting out-shot 13-4 and out-chanced 13-3. Boston capitalized on a Michael Frolik turnover to open the scoring; Frolik won a battle along the side boards, but blindly passed the puck out towards the net… where David Pastrnak grabbed it and beat Rittich to make it 1-0. The locals managed zero shots on their first period power play.

The Flames got on the board in the second. On their second power play, the coaching staff sent their second power play unit out first to get the Bruins primary penalty killers off the ice for the Johnny Gaudreau unit. It worked, and while Tuukka Rask stopped a Sean Monahan shot, Matthew Tkachuk jammed in the rebound to tie the game at 1-1. The Flames were better in the second half of the period, but couldn’t bury anything. Boston led 10-8 in shots and 10-7 in scoring chances.

Nobody scored in the third, though Rittich made a fantastic breakaway save on Pastrnak. Shots were 12-7 Flames and chances were 9-8 Flames.

But the Flames couldn’t bury their chances in overtime despite having a 5-2 edge in shots, and Brad Marchand took advantage of a T.J. Brodie turnover to score on a breakaway to ice this one at 2-1 for Boston.

They were the second-best team throughout the game, but they got great goaltending and managed to get a goal from their special teams. They were fortunate to get a point from this game.

Rittich. He was easily the difference-maker for the Flames on this afternoon.

Marchand’s overtime goal was the third breakaway of the game. Unfortunately, Rittich couldn’t stop all three.

Garnet Hathaway fought Adam McQuaid in the second period. It didn’t accomplish much.

Klimchuk played 7:25 in his debut and was credited with a missed shot, a hit and a takeaway. He was largely fine and didn’t make any mistakes during his brief times on the ice. He noted that he was body-checked by Zdeno Chara during his debut, which was probably terrifying.

The Flames now have 69 points with 22 games remaining. They need 27 points over their remaining schedule – the equivalent of a 13-8-1 record to hit the 96 point mark that’ll probably be the playoff cut-off.

The Flames (30-21-9) practice tomorrow and then fly to Vegas, where they’ll visit T-Mobile Arena for the first time on Wednesday when they face the Golden Knights.