Post-Games: Leafs wilt against Flames

It’s always an interesting occasion in the Saddledome when the Toronto Maple Leafs come to town. Calgary, as you may know, is a city of transplants; the common joke is that nobody is actually from Calgary, it’s just a place that seems to collect people. The ‘Dome was roughly one-third full of blue sweaters cheering on one of hockey’s Original Six clubs this evening. After the first 49 seconds of this contest, those fans were awfully quiet.

The Calgary Flames uncharacteristically got out to an early lead and held on for the rest of the game against a Leafs team that played the night before. You would’ve expected the Flames to win a game like this, and they did so tonight, by a 3-0 score.

Against all odds, the Flames led 2-0 before most people sat down after the intermission. First, a dump-in was followed by a quick puck retrieval by Micheal Ferland and a one-timer teed up for Freddie Hamilton, who beat Jhonas Enroth on the first shot of the game just 14 seconds in.

Before they had a chance to announce that goal, Sean Monahan’s rebound went right to Kris Versteeg who buried it for a 2-0 lead (on three shots) after just 49 seconds.

As the period wound down, the Leafs gained some momentum and they really seemed to get a lift out of a really rough Flames power play that generated zero shots. However, immediately after that Leafs penalty expired, the Flames struck again: Alex Chiasson carried the puck into the zone and passed it quickly to Michael Frolik, who quickly chucked the puck into the slot for a quick tip-in by Matt Stajan to make it 3-0.

Shots were 12-10 for the Leafs in the opening frame.

Nobody scored in the second period, as the home side seemed content to implement a “grind it out” mentality for the remainder of the game. The Flames had a solid PP that generated some chances once they managed to gain the zone half-way through, and a decent penalty kill which managed to allow zero goals despite giving the Leafs a lot of time and space in the offensive zone. Shots were 13-13 in the second.

The Flames held on in the third period. There was a really nice Johnson save on Mitch Marner on a breakaway, but beyond that the Flames coasted and played some preventative hockey. Shots were 14-6 for Toronto.

They were a lot better in the first period, took advantage of their early chances, and then were good enough in playing a staunch defensive game not to give up too much against a young, usually fast and scrappy Leafs squad that was neither of those things tonight.

The third Flames goal, notched as the first period began to wind down, was a back-breaker. The Leafs seemed to gain some energy from Calgary’s bad power play, but got scored upon yet again before they had a chance to take advantage.

Let’s go with Calgary’s netminder, who was very good when called upon tonight.

Honestly? Their game scores are all a rather rough because of score effects impacting their possession stats, but nobody was all that bad tonight. Nobody really stood out overall aside from Johnson, but this was a rock-solid team win.

The goals in that game were from Doug Risebrough (9 seconds in) and Colin Patterson (32 seconds in).

“We talked about coming back in and not changing the way we played on the road, and for the most part we did that. I thought they actually, after we scored three we sat back and definitely let them skate a lot and that took us out of our game but all-in-all, sometimes it’s tough to maintain that. Especially when there’s a high-skilled team on the other side.” – Flames winger Kris Versteeg assessing his team’s performance.

“We’ve definitely been more structured as a group. We’re just playing more as five-man units and obviously when you get a lead, score some goals, it makes everything easier. The goaltending makes everything even much more easier, because even when you get a breakdown they cover it up for you. When you’re not scoring goals, things get magnified, and you wait for bad things to happen. That’s what’s been happening early in the season because we haven’t been scoring many goals. We’ve done a good job doing the little things better, but now we gotta keep making plays, build off this win and try to fill the back of their net and keep doing what we’ve been doing defensively.” – Flames center Matt Stajan summing up the last good stretch of hockey from the hockey club.

The Flames (11-13-2) have a recovery day tomorrow and then are back in action on Friday night when they face the Minnesota Wild.