Post-Game: Sabres Stifle Flames

It was bound to happen eventually, but the shoe is on the other foot now as the Calgary Flames out-played and out-shot the Buffalo Sabres by a hefty margin, but dropped a 4-3 road loss in upstate New York. As a result, the Flames are on their worst losing string of this season – at three.

Sure puts things in perspective, eh?

Despite putting a tire factory of rubber at Jhonas Enroth this evening, the Sabres netminder kept his team in it. At the other end, pucks just found their way past Karri Ramo via a combination of wonky defense and nice shooting by the Sabres forwards.

Nobody scored in the first period, but the Flames sure did their best to get the opening goal. They out-shot the home side by a pretty steep 11-6 margin, but couldn’t beat Enroth. (Spoiler: This will be a pattern.)

The teams exchanged goals in the second. Buffalo opened the scoring five minutes in as Matt Moulson tapped in a nifty Tyler Ennis feed (after a steal from T.J. Brodie) past Ramo to make it 1-0. By virtue of an extended two-man advantage – via penalties in rapid succession by Marcus Foligno and Nicolas Deslauriers – the Flames got a golden opportunity to tie it up, and they capitalized with a Mark Giordano goal to make it 1-1. The Sabres regained the lead soon after, as Foligno’s line took advantage of some zone time against Calgary’s third pairing (of Deryk Engelland and Rapha Diaz) and some quick passes later, Foligno made it 2-1. The Flames managed to tie it late via a David Jones goal that knotted it at 2-2. Calgary out-shot Buffalo 16-6.

The third period was another close one, except for the fact that Buffalo was much more opportunistic than Calgary was. Sean Monahan gave the Flames a lead early in the period off a Joe Colborne set-up. But that lead was erased by the Latvian Assassin, Zemgus Girgensens (trademark pending), and Matt Moulson added his second of the game a few minutes later to pull away. The Flames out-shot the Sabres 18-7, but Buffalo scored twice and Calgary scored just once, and that made all the difference in the world.

Calga-regression appears to be rearing its ugly head.

They played well, but a combination of some occasionally shoddy defensive play, some bounces and a goalie that, for luck or for skill, could not keep the puck out of his net led to a one-goal road loss. (If you’re so inclined, Calgary’s PDO was 85.7 while Buffalo’s was 114.3. It’s one game, so the number doesn’t mean much, but it is what it is.)

Not to pin this entirely on the goalie, but when your offense generates three goals on the road and gives you an early third period lead, you should be able to close it out. Particularly against Buffalo.

Joe Colborne had an assist and was a plus-one in 20 minutes of work in his return to the line-up. That’s good enough for me.

The Flames are, predictably, facing some tough times. The effort was mostly there, but a few gaffes and a few bounces spelled disaster and a 4-3 loss, their 11th of the season. The 17-11-2 Flames are back at it tomorrow night as they hop a plane and trek to the Consol Energy Center in the Steel City for a meeting with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Puck drop is 5pm MT for that hockey encounter.