Quips and Quotes: Flames lose to Stars 4-3 (in overtime)

The Calgary Flames lost to the Dallas Stars by a 4-3 score in overtime on Wednesday night. Here are selected reactions from players and coaches following the game.

It’s not a controversial statement to say that there was contact between Stars forward Jamie Benn and Flames goaltender David Rittich prior to Tyler Seguin’s game-winning goal. There was obviously contact as Benn cut behind Rittich.

The degree to which Benn’s contact hindered Rittich’s ability to play the position on Seguin’s shot was a subject of much discussion following the game.

“He hit me, so, I was a little bit set but not 100% ready for anything,” said Rittich. “I didn’t have too much time for recovery.”

Flames head coach Bill Peters relayed what he was told by the officials regarding why the goal stood.

“The ruling that they came up with out of Toronto is that he had time to get reset,” said Peters. “Anytime you go to a review, it’s a little scary, right? You don’t know how it’s gonna turn out. Could’ve went either way and you could’ve agreed with it either way, probably.”

Obviously Rittich did not agree with the officials’ decision.

If you watched the game and thought “Man, the Flames look a bit off,” you likely weren’t the only one with that opinion. One person that shared the opinion that the Flames weren’t great against Dallas was their head coach.

“You know what? I think we were fortunate to get a point out of the game,” said Peters. “I didn’t think we were very good. I didn’t think that our attention to detail was very good and that our commitment to doing it right wasn’t where it needs to be to get two points.”

Flames captain Mark Giordano didn’t love their inability to sew things up defensively when they were nursing their 3-2 lead late in the third period.

“We could’ve did a better job of shutting it down I thought,” said Giordano. “A couple breakdowns and we end up with one instead of two. It doesn’t feel good, honestly. It feels like we cost ourselves a point there.”

Flames gave up 11 high-danger scoring chances (per Natural Stat Trick), including seven in the first period alone. It was their worst defensive performance, by that measure, since their Nov. 11 loss in San Jose and just the second time dating back to their 9-1 loss to Pittsburgh on Oct. 25 that they’ve allowed 10 (or more) high-danger chances.