Quips and Quotes: Flames lose to Maple Leafs 6-2

The Calgary Flames lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs by a 6-2 score on Monday night. Here are selected reactions from players and coaches following the game.

The Flames got off to a decent start, but they gave up a power play goal midway through the first period and then were chasing the rest of the way.

Flames head coach Bill Peters noted that his club had some chances, but couldn’t find a way to translate looks into goals – this game was quite similar to Saturday’s loss to Minnesota in that regard.

“I thought we had some looks, there’s no doubt about that,” said Peters. “I thought they did a better job being harder at the blue paint. We had a bit of a tougher time in the offensive zone. We turned a few over that led to some chances and led to some trouble, but they did a good job funneling pucks to the net and being at the net.”

If you look at the box-score, it would be easy to conclude that Flames netminder David Rittich was junk and that the sky is falling. But if you check out the tape, it’s hard to fault him on most of the goals.

Flames winger Matthew Tkachuk pushed back against any notions that Rittich was the reason the home team captured zero points.

“Absolutely not,” said Tkachuk, noting that Rittich might’ve been the best Flame on the evening. “Definitely not his fault. Ton of deflections, some screens, open nets, breakaways. Can’t fault him. I thought he actually did a good job making some saves late. They could’ve put the game even more out of reach.”

Mark Giordano’s chat with the media focused on the Leafs being better at the small details of the game than the Flames were. He’s not wrong. The Flames turned the puck over frequently and their play in their own end directly contributed to at least three goals against.

The Flames are still in a pretty good position relative to the rest of the Western Conference – three points up on San Jose for the top spot in the conference and division – but they’ll need to find their commitment to the details if they’re hoping to cement themselves in the post-season picture.