Post-Game: Visiting Flames not blue in St. Loo

(Jeff Curry / USA Today Sports)

Last night, the Calgary Flames put together a damn fine 60 minutes of hockey and managed to beat the Chicago Blackhawks in a shootout despite some defensive gaffes. Tonight, the Flames rolled into St. Louis to play the Blues in their second game in as many nights. They continued their stretch of solid hockey, beating the Blues 4-1.

That’s right: the Flames have seemingly snapped out of whatever funk they were in and have captured four points in the last 27 hours.

Remember how the Flames were good in Chicago in the first? Well, they were about as good here in the first but faded a bit as St. Louis made adjustments late and took over for awhile. Anyway, the Flames power play opened the scoring for the second time in as many games (in as many days): the Flames won the face-off, all four Blues players skated into the corner after the puck. The puck got sent out to Dennis Wideman for a one-timer and a 1-0 lead.

The lead was boosted to two goals later in the period, as Kris Versteeg came in on the rush with Sam Bennett. The Blues guarded Bennett like a hawk, which opened up a lane for…Deryk Engelland, who snuck in from the point and beat Carter Hutton with a nice backhand deke to double the lead. The Blues pressed for basically the last eight minutes of the period but couldn’t bury anything. Shots were 8-5 Flames in the first.

The Flames opened second with a PP after the Blues took a lazy too many men penalty at the end of the first. They didn’t generate very much, but then Bennett beat a screened Hutton after the penalty expired to make it 3-0.

The Flames had more chances throughout the period, but couldn’t score again. But they also managed to minimize St. Louis’ chances. Shots were 15-6 for Calgary in the second.

The Blues finally answered back early in the third, though they got a lot of help from a lapse in discipline from the Flames. Bennett went off for boarding and Mark Giordano went off for shooting the puck over glass, giving the Blues 1:43 of a two-man advantage. Kevin Shattenkirk took advantage of the time, space, and traffic in front of Brian Elliott to make it 3-1. But that was as close as the Blues got, and Johnny Gaudreau added an empty-netter late to make it a 4-1 final. Shots were 13-7 for St. Louis in the third.

They were better than the Blues in all three zones and through much of all three periods. They weren’t perfect, but they played a fairly smart, structured road game. They scored when they needed to and got saves from Elliott when they needed to. Aside from taking two penalties in succession, they never really got in their own way tonight.

As weird as it feels to declare, it was Engelland’s goal in the first period. The nice deke came outta nowhere and gave the Flames their first two-goal lead of the season. The Blues seemed as taken aback as hockey Twitter was, and they never quite got back into the game all the way.

Bennett had a goal and an assist, and generally served as the anchor to a really strong line between Versteeg and Brouwer. His face-off numbers weren’t great, but he was otherwise a strong contributor in all three zones.

Honourable mentions to Elliott, getting his second Flames win immediately after his first Flames win, and Tkachuk was also consistently dangerous (and had an assist).

(Percentage stats are even strength. Game score is overall.)

Reminder: Giordano was an unsigned OHL player that the Flames recruited to be a filler body on their shared AHL affiliate in Lowell, MA after they lost the 2004 Stanley Cup Final due to running out of human bodies. Now? An NHL captain with 600 games under his belt.

The Flames (2-4-1) return home and commemorate the end of their road trip with a CBA-mandated day off tomorrow. They’re back on practice ice on Thursday and back in game action on Friday night when they host the Ottawa Senators. It’ll be the annual Hockey Fights Cancer Night, with tons of opportunities for fan to donate funds to various cancer-battling charities.