It’s a Team Game – It wasn’t the worst outing for the Flames, but their inability to score remained prevalent in their game. Matt Coronato had a standout performance up front, but was bitten by one of the worst bad luck spells I’ve seen all season. Overall Calgary had a good start to the game, only surrendering the first goal after going down to three men. The second period is where it fell apart, the Rangers were able to start piling up quality chances. Dustin Wolf wasn’t able to hold down the fort, and he stopped getting a lot of structured help in front him. That’s all fine – it’s just the way it’s going to go sometimes both now and in the near future.

Corsi King – Adam Klapka (66.71 CF%) doesn’t get any shoutouts often – he plays 4th line minutes and doesn’t score a lot – but I want to highlight that since the Olympic break he’s been remarkably consistent at finishing on the positive side of the shot share. He’s a fantastic fourth line NHL player with size and physicality. So long as he keeps up the ability to play on the positive side of the puck he’ll have a decent career. Olli Määttä (47.59 per cent) got some top pair duty next to Kevin Bahl (44.12 per cent) in this one. Those two were easily the ones leaned on the most by the Flames

Under Pressure –

Taken By Chance – The great news is the 2nd most used defence pair was the rookie tandem of Yan Kuznetsov (18.95 SCF% // 24.10 HDCF%) and Zayne Parekh (33.89 per cent // 50.44 per cent). It’s good to see them out there getting reps. Parekh starts to do better things every single game. I can live with any gaffs right now – I just want to see progression in his game and confidence. My suggestion? Quit playing around with two power play units and have him be the QB for both – he’s your best puck mover back there by a mile. It’s not unearned, his constant ability to move the puck has been showcased at a higher level than the other defenceman – it’s earned.

xG Breakdown –

xGF% – Matt Coronato (62.45 per cent) was a man on a mission, unfortunately the mission was unsuccessful. He and Morgan Frost (44.91 per cent) stood out to me on multiple occasions successfully pulling off plays to get good scoring chances. The pass, players, and shots were all driving the middle of the ice with those two, Jonathan Quick just had all the answers (and bounces). The best we’ve ever seen Coronato is when he decides to become this high volume shooter who plays the game like someone desperate to score a goal. He was like that in New York – which makes sense, it’s his home – for the first time in months. Calgary really needs him to showcase that he can find the back of the net more often. He’s in these long term plans for good (7 years, 6.5M per year) – I’d like the next 18 games to feature at least 5 goals from him. To build some confidence going into next season.

Game Flow –

Game Score –

Shot Heatmap –

In The Crease – Dustin Wolf was both not great, but also not bad. He was somewhere in the middle. He had his usual “how did he get that” moments, but the Rangers kept finding ways to beat him. There were some very fancy goals from New York, who took full advantage of all the passing lanes the Flames were leaving open. At 5v5 New York got to a fairly impressive 2.99 expected goals against and got 3 goals on them. Not the Flames night, which as stated earlier is completely okay right now. No major faults, it remained competitive until the third.

The Goals –

N/A

Flash’s 3 Stars –

1) Matt Coronato

2) Morgan Frost

3) Olli Määttä

(Stats compiled from Naturalstattrick.com // Game Score from Hockeystatcards.com // xG and Under Pressure charts from HockeyViz.com // Game Flow and Shot Heatmap from NaturalStatTrick.com)

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