Post-Game: Flat Flames fail in Phoenix

The Calgary Flames continued a stretch of less than stellar play on Thursday night in Phoenix. In a rather sleepy affair, the Flames failed to generate many dangerous chances and were shut out by the Arizona Coyotes. They lost 2-0.

The Flames were shut out, and Arizona scored twice on a couple defensive miscues.

Travis Hamonic was caught on a pinch midway through the first period. That left Noah Hanifin alone to defend a two-on-one rush from Christian Dvorak and Clayton Keller. Hanifin chose to utilize the Ian White Starfish, dropping to the ice in an attempt to block the pass. But Dvorak got the pass across anyway, allowing Keller a beautiful one-timer chance that beat Mike Smith to make it 1-0.

The Coyotes made it 2-0 on a weird sequence in the third period. Noah Hanifin was shoved down while battling with Dvorak at the top of the crease. He fell on Smith, and the 36-year-old took four full seconds to get up. In the chaos, Jacob Chychrun fired a point shot past Smith. The Flames challenged for goaltender interference but the official ruling was that no interference occurred; either Hanifin fell on his own, or he could’ve avoided falling on Smith, or that falling onto Smith occurred far enough before Chychrun’s shot (or wasn’t severe enough) that it didn’t make a difference.

Sure.

The Flames were out-shot and out-chanced early, and the Coyotes did a good job limiting chances once they got a lead.

They weren’t all that good. They were good early, but the rest of the game they were in the right spots but not really battling or kicking it into higher gear. They were positionally sound, but flat.

The Coyotes won most of the battles, and actually generated as many or more high-danger chances as the Flames in every period. The home side was more desperate, and so the Flames left empty-handed.

Mikael Backlund led the Flames in shots and battled here and there, so let’s give it to him.

The second Coyotes goal was a back-breaker, as the way the Flames have been scoring (or not) a two goal deficit seemed like Mount Everest.

The Flames have not had a lead in their last 12 periods. Or, put another way, they haven’t had a lead in March.

Sam Bennett left the game in the third period after this nasty hit from Jordan Oesterle.

The Flames (41-20-7) fly home tonight. They host the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday night.