Quips and Quotes: Flames lose to Avalanche 6-2 in Game 3

The Calgary Flames lost to the Colorado Avalanche by a 6-2 score on Monday night in Game 3 of the Western Conference quarterfinal series. Here are selected reactions from players and coaches following the game.

For the first two games of this series, the Avalanche went as Nathan MacKinnon went. He was pretty good in Game 1 but lacked execution. He was really good in Game 2, particularly late in the game, and scored the game-winning goal in overtime.

Well, he was superb for the first period of Game 3. He had two goals, a primary assist and four shots in 6:47. At that point, Colorado really didn’t need to use much line-matching and MacKinnon basically played a little bit against everybody. He didn’t do a ton in the last 40 minutes because he didn’t have to; he just had to not be terrible, which was something every Avalanche skater was fully capable of doing.

The Flames needed to wear MacKinnon down to make life easier on themselves for the latter part of the series. That didn’t happen in Game 3, and it seems pretty evident that he has a lot left in the tank.

Calgary product (and newly-minted Hobey Baker Award winner) Cale Makar debuted in Game 3. He was pretty good, with his debut capping off with a pretty decent goal at the end of the first period (eventually serving as the game-winner) that took advantage of several Flames players standing around in their own end.

Makar played 14:19 overall with two shots on goal.

At even strength, the Flames were out-shot 37-23. Their special teams units were out-shot by a combined 19-6 margin.

If you want to break it down by any metric, they really weren’t particularly good in any situation. They were out-chanced at even strength and out-chanced at special teams, and Colorado seemed perfectly content to run out the clock for the final 40 minutes.