Post-Game: Too Little, Too Late

Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the aftermath of an emotional rollercoaster of a game on New Year’s Eve. Maybe it was just a matter of time before we got one.

Either way, tonight’s game at the Saddledome between the Calgary Flames and their expansion cousins, the New York Islanders, was a low-key affair that featured a fairly uninspired Calgary Flames club.

It was a game, a low event game, that the Flames lost decisively by a 2-1 score.

The Islanders drove play for much of the first period. They got the first six or seven shots on goal. The Flames barely got into the Islanders zone, outside of icing the puck repeatedly. Lance Bouma made a diving play, knocking the puck away from Johnny Boychuk on an almost-breakaway. Unfortunately, he was also called for tripping – though he did hit the puck first. Matt Stajan got a penalty on the ensuing face-off for a face-off violation, and the Islanders scored on the ensuing five-on-three via a nice passing play finished off down-low by John Tavares. He’s pretty good. After that, the locals came back a bit, but they never got a can’t-miss scoring chance and the Isles structured their D-zone play rather well. Shots were 9-7 for the visitors.

The second period was a carbon copy of the latter half of the first, in the sense that there weren’t many chances. Josh Jooris drew a penalty and the Flames generated some nice movement on the power-play, but they couldn’t bury anything and the Isles were able to guard the front of the net rather effectively. There was no scoring in the middle frame. Shots were 9-6 for the Flames.

A third period here. Tavares went five-hole late to extend the lead. Flames ran out of gas after having a few decent chances. Johnny Gaudreau broke the shutout bid by Jaroslav Halak and the Flames had a bit of jump late, but ultimately they didn’t have enough gas (or time) left in the tank to pull out another comeback.

They weren’t all that good. They weren’t a tire fire of incompetence or anything like that, but they didn’t show much jump, much emotion or much execution. They were a half-step out of sync, and against an Islanders team that was a bit better talent and execution wise, that made all the difference.

Sean Monahan took 28 of Calgary’s 66 face-offs. He won almost as many (12) as the next-most frequent face-off taker took (Jooris, with 14). Let’s go with #23 here, but it’s hardly a white-hot race here.

The Calgary Flames are off for a few days! They don’t even practice tomorrow. They’re back on the practice ice on Sunday and they’re back in game action on Wednesday night when they entertain the Detroit Red Wings at the ‘Dome.