Quips and Quotes: Flames lose to Golden Knights 2-0

The Calgary Flames lost to the Vegas Golden Knights by a 2-0 score on Friday night. Here are selected reactions from players and coaches following the game.

The Flames were shut out for the first time this season. After scoring a bunch of goals – 15 through five periods against Edmonton, Vegas and Winnipeg – they’ve quietly been shut out through their last five periods. (It’s probably their shooting percentages normalizing, for what it’s worth.)

Flames captain Mark Giordano credited the Golden Knights for imposing their pace on the game (and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury for making some key stops).

“You’ve got to give them credit,” said Giordano. “They grinded. They really worked us on the cycle. For whatever reason tonight, last two games we scored a ton of goals on all our chances it seemed like and tonight he made some good saves and we didn’t bury them when we had them.”

The Flames and Golden Knights combined for just eight high-danger scoring chances (per Natural Stat Trick). It’s the lowest combined high-danger chance total in any Flames game this season.

“There wasn’t a lot of room either way,” said Flames head coach Bill Peters. “Especially through the neutral zone. I thought both teams tightened up and there wasn’t a lot of free ice.”

Peters added that he felt the team could’ve been more direct with their attack and managed the puck a bit better.

As you would expect, Peters shuffled the lines heading into the third period:

Gaudreau – Lindholm – Tkachuk
Dube – Monahan – Ryan
Bennett – Backlund – Neal
Czarnik – Jankowski – Hathaway

The fourth line barely saw the ice in the third period. Mark Jankowski played 1:53, Garnet Hathaway 1:52, and Austin Czarnik played just 0:11. If somebody’s coming out so they can play Ryan Lomberg against Arizona, it’s probably Czarnik.