Post-Game: Flames withstand Avalanche of shots

The Calgary Flames returned home from a successful road trip to host the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night. The Flames were good early and good late, and they managed to withstand a barrage of shots from the Avalanche in the other 30 minutes. The Flames were good enough at key times to capture two big points, beating Colorado by a 5-3 score.

After an early Flames penalty kill, lines became a bit of a hodgepodge. Johnny Gaudreau stretched out to catch a James Neal pass and avoid an icing. Gaudreau, Neal, Mikael Backlund and Rasmus Andersson did a good job cycling the puck and winning battles. Gaudreau fed Neal out front and Semyon Varlamov made the initial stop, but Backlund buried the rebound to make it 1-0 Flames.

A few minutes later the Flames doubled their lead. Sam Bennett and Mark Jankowski caught the Avalanche sleeping in their own zone, which allowed the duo to skate into the slot and Jankowski to bury a Bennett feed low glove-side on Varlamov to make it a 2-0 Flames lead.

The Avalanche answered back before the end of the period amidst a comedy of errors by the Flames. David Rittich’s attempted outlet pass didn’t quite get out of the Flames zone. They did manage to get it out, but Sean Monahan’s pass bonked off Noah Hanifin (and Hanifin dropped his stick), leaving a lot of red sweaters watching as Gabriel Landeskog fed Nathan MacKinnon for a one-timer from the face-off dot that beat Rittich to make it a 2-1 Flames lead.

Colorado tied things up late in the first, as the Flames had an odd-man rush broken up in the Avalanche end. Erik Johnson led a rush the other way and beat Rittich just inside the post on his stick-side to make it a 2-2 game.

Shots were 11-5 Avalanche and scoring chances were 9-8 Avalanche in the first.

The Flames were not good in the second period. They had a power play that had zero shots early in the period. They didn’t get their first shot until halfway through the period. They were hemmed into their own end several times. But they left the period with a lead.

Derek Ryan drew a penalty in the Avalanche zone and after a face-off win, Elias Lindholm beat Varlamov glove-side with a nice wrist shot to make it a 3-2 game. The shot was the first power play shot the Flames got and came 10 seconds into the man advantage.

Shots were 10-6 Avalanche and scoring chances were 8-6 Avalanche in the second.

The Flames got out to a much better to start to kick off the third period and were rewarded. Michael Frolik was stopped on a scoring chance, but he went to work, won some puck battles down low, and eventually beat Varlamov to make it a 4-2 lead for the Flames, tipping in a point shot from Mark Giordano.

Colorado got one back, with Mikko Rantanen scoring on a bad-angle shot off the rush to make it 4-3 just after Gaudreau failed to score on an empty net. But that’s as close as the Avalanche got. Matthew Tkachuk scored on an empty net to make it a 5-3 victory for the Flames.

Shots were 14-5 Avalanche and chances 8-6 Avalanche in the third period.

The Flames weren’t great on this evening. But they were good enough when they were good and scored enough goals when they were carrying play to win. They had some trouble clearing their zone and occasionally struggled with Colorado’s speed on the rush, but they also occasionally connected on some really nice passing plays.

It’s also worth noting that Rittich was much better than Varlamov, which was enough of a difference-maker on its own to give the Flames a fighting chance.

Rittich. He was their best player in the iffy middle section of this game.

Lindholm’s power play goal was huge for the Flames. They hadn’t played very well in the second period and their first power play did very little to inspire confidence. But they got a key goal from a key player at a key time, and it was enough to put them over the top.

This was Gaudreau’s 20th multi-point game of the season and Giordano’s 13th multi-point game of the season.

The Flames are now 21-1-2 when entering the third period tied or leading.

The Flames (28-13-4) practice tomorrow. They host the Florida Panthers at the ‘Dome on Friday night.