Post-Game: Winning Ugly

Roughly a day and a half after reenacting the plot from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Joni Ortio made his first appearance of the season for the Flames in the back-half of a back-to-back for his team. Sixty minutes of calm goaltending later, he left Vancouver with a win and his first National Hockey League shutout.

The Flames eked out a 1-0 win on the road against a team they haven’t had much success against, backstopped by a goaltender who went through a 40-hour travel nightmare to get back to the big leagues. Life’s funny like that.

As for the game? It was ugly, but Ortio and the Flames found a way to beat the Vancouver Canucks. Here’s how it went down at Rogers Arena tonight.

To be honest, there’s not much to cover here.

The Flames scored a goal in the first period, off a nice shift from the newly-formed line of David Jones, Mikael Backlund and Johnny Gaudreau. Some nice passing led to a nice Backlund goal. After that, the Canucks pressed. And pressed. And pressed.

And they couldn’t score a damn goal.

The Flames were out-shot and out-chanced through the majority of the game.

There were two differences in this game: Joni Ortio was better than Eddie Lack, and Vancouver seemed to lose their nerve in the third. Calgary was more structured and poised in the third period – winning more face-offs by a 10-8 margin after losing two-thirds of them over the first two periods – but Vancouver seemed to lose their desire to go to the center of the ice and put the puck on net. Calgary boxed them out effectively and Vancouver seemed to be completely befuddled about what to do about it.

There was one goal. But it was a more effectively 60-minute effort by the Flames than we’ve seen in about a week, and it ended the losing streak.

The Flames seemed to get better defensively as the game went on, and Joni Ortio was good when he had to be. The team did their best after they got a lead to keep the lead, and breakdowns weren’t nearly as deadly as they have been in the recent past.

Keeping the spirit of Turku alive, Joni Ortio made 36 saves to earn his first career shutout. He also drew a penalty, so he’s got that going for him, too.

Oh, and I was informed that his luggage DID arrive in Calgary yesterday prior to the game, so he did get his contact lenses back.

All in all, everything this weekend turned out pretty good for Ortio.

The Flames have improved their record to 22-18-3 on the season, which is pretty decent and keeps them in the hunt for a playoff spot…for now.

The boys are off tomorrow entirely, are back at practice on Monday as they prepare for their next game – on Thursday in Glendale as they continue this weird road trip against the Arizona Coyotes!