Post-Game: Honky Tonk Victory

The Calgary Flames continued their epic six-game road trip tonight in the Music City, with a match-up at Bridgestone Arena against the Nashville Predators. After a hard-fought, fairly-even 60 minutes of hockey it all came down to the shootout, and the Flames left Tennessee with a 3-2 victory. Their record for the season has been evened-out at 2-2-0.

Here’s how things went down tonight in Nashville.

The first period was marked by a pair of odd-angle goals. Filip Forsberg (no relation to Peter) scored on Karri Ramo from an odd angle on a one-timer, giving the Predators a 1-0 lead. T.J. Brodie answered back almost immediately, with #7 going into the offensive zone on a rush and chucking the puck towards the front of the net, where it bonked into the twine off a Predators defender. Shots were 7-6 shots for Nashville, despite the Predators having a pair of power-plays that didn’t generate much of anything.

The second frame was another entertaining end-to-end stretch of hockey. Mark Giordano put Calgary up briefly via a nice one-timer on the power-play, but Mike Ribeiro evened it up later in the period off a weird play. The puck was put on net but kind-of knuckle-balled; the rebound went right to Ribeiro and he put it home. Shots were 11-6 for Calgary, the difference being a pair of Flames power-plays.

The third period was really two periods; the first chunk was en extension of the first 40 minutes of end-to-end play. The latter stages featured both teams really not wanting to engage and desperately clinging to their regulation points. Nobody scored, and there were far fewer scoring chances than in the prior periods. Shots were 9-7 for the Flames, likely a reflection of their one power-play in the third. Lance Bouma went into the boards awkwardly while colliding with Paul Gaustad, and left the game.

Overtime solved nothing, and Joe Colborne scored the only goal for either side in the skills competition to give Calgary a 3-2 win.

The Flames worked hard for 60 minutes and most importantly, they worked harder than the home team. They were a little bit better in every area than they were against St. Louis – better start, better at face-off, better at the penalty kill, better on the power-play – and it was enough to win on the road.

Also, Karri Ramo was better than Pekka Rinne.

Karri Ramo. Flat-out, Ramo robbed a couple Predators players – Gabriel Bourque point-blank on a Giordano bobble and Colin Smith on a cross-crease save – that basically cemented the regulation point for the Flames. Without Ramo’s heroics, this is a completely different contest.

Not much physicality here, so here’s some crushing disappointment in Toronto as the world gets teased with an absolute great tilt that didn’t happen.

The Flames went into Nashville’s barn and got two points via a strong 60-minute effort, some great goaltending, and some shootout heroics from Joe Colborne. They’re back at .500, and hit the road immediately to face the Chicago Blackhawks tomorrow evening. The puck drops at 6pm MT on the main Sportsnet feed (I believe it’s Sportsnet West, and it’s a national game).