Quips and Quotes: Flames beat Coyotes 7-1

The Calgary Flames beat the Arizona Coyotes by a 7-1 score on Sunday night. Here are selected reactions from players and coaches following the game.

The Flames scored early, scored often, and then scored some more against a Coyotes team that was coming off a really good effort against Edmonton a night prior. After lobbing some criticism at his group after their last win – noting their winning was masking some bad habits – Flames head coach Bill Peters was very complementary of his team’s performance.

“The effort was good,” said Peters. “Everyone found a way to contribute. Everyone played good minutes. I liked us. I thought we were good. I thought they had a good power play. I thought they did some things and Smitty was called upon and came up big. So that was good to see. And good for Mangy to get his first point, Gio to play in his 800th game, so a lot of positives again here tonight.”

Only five Flames skaters – Garnet Hathaway, Oliver Kylington, Rasmus Andersson, Dalton Prout and Noah Hanifin – failed to register a point. With the Flames not getting down in the game, the club was able to do something they rarely do: roll four lines and three pairings.

“It was important to play everybody and let everybody play within their roles and make sure they get ice time,” said Peters. “The other night the Ryan line didn’t play nearly enough and it wasn’t a byproduct of their play, it was just a game situation. Here tonight was an opportunity to make sure everyone got to play and the guys did a good job with it.”

The Flames hit all manners of milestones and accomplishments. Obviously Mark Giordano played his 800th NHL game, while Mikael Backlund crept into a tie for ninth on the Flames’ games-played leaderboard with his 586th contest (he’s tied with Jamie Macoun). Andrew Mangiapane had his first NHL point, too.

But Johnny Gaudreau climbed into second place in the NHL in scoring, Sean Monahan into 10th place and Giordano into second place among defensemen in scoring. Giordano remains first overall in plus/minus, but he’s been joined by TJ Brodie and Elias Lindholm in the league’s top five in that category.

All this and the Flames remain first place in the Western Conference and Pacific Division, and in the midst of one of their best starts – or seasons – in franchise history.