Post-Game: The Devil’s In The Details

Just over 24 hours ago, the Calgary Flames played a structured game against the New York Rangers. They lost, partially because they didn’t adapt their structure to adjust for what the Rangers did, and partially because the Rangers are a much better hockey club.

Tonight, against a New Jersey Devils team that’s a bit less terrifying than the Rangers, the Flames managed to learn from the previous night, adapt and attack, and came away with a crucial 3-1 victory to even their road trip thus far at one win and one loss.

Here’s how it went down at the Prudential Center this evening.

Maybe it’s because they habitually get out of the gates flat, or maybe they’re just nice guests, but the Flames – once again – gave up the first goal. However, this time it came at the end of a rather back-and-forth first period. But with just shy of three minutes left, Mike Cammalleri made a nice play off a partial screen and put a puck past Karri Ramo to give the Devils a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes.

The Flames evened it up in the second in what was another fairly even period. After a back-and-forth stretch, Joe Colborne made a nice read and found Curtis Glencross at the side of the net, who tapped the puck in to tie the game with just 14 seconds left in the middle frame. The game was chippy, and the Devils’ Jon Merrill took a slashing penalty at period’s end. That’d be important later.

After the intermission, the Flames got right to work, as Mark Giordano made a nice slap-pass to Sean Monahan in the slot, who redirected it cleanly on the goal to get his 21st goal of the season to give Calgary their first lead of the road trip. The Devils pressed and pressed – and Calgary helped them out with a pair of third-period penalties to Johnny “The Goon” Gaudreau and Mikael Backlund – but the Flames didn’t break. With the Devils net empty and Backlund in the box, giving New Jersey a 6-on-4 advantage, T.J. Brodie scored his 10th of the season from just inside his blueline to cement the Flames victory by a 3-1 score.

Also of note, Mark Giordano took a tumble late in the game and didn’t return, although his tumble came around the time of the empty-net goal. He’ll be re-evaluated tomorrow.

They didn’t get too crazy after last night’s loss. They went with the same line-up and the same general approach, and outside of shaking up the lines a bit mid-way and opening up the game a bit more later on, they played the same type of game. It was enough to win tonight.

Curtis Glencross got a key goal and got into a scrap. That’s enough for me. Honourable mentions to Sean Monahan, with the game-winning goal and an assist, and Karri Ramo, who was excellent once again.

The Flames have five games left on the trip and 21 remaining this season. They probably need about 12 more wins to get into the playoffs. Their next chance to trim that total down comes on Friday night, as they make their last-ever trip to the venerable Nassau Memorial Coliseum to take on the New York Islanders.