The Calgary Flames hosted the Washington Capitals on Friday evening, losing by a score of 3-1.

It’s a Team Game – This game was actually one of the Flames better offensive efforts of late, in terms of the quality of chances accrued, but facing a goaltender as good as Logan Thompson is enough of a counter to their skill deficiency it did not matter. Calgary was better early, getting the lead on a power play marker and then keeping up with the aggressive forecheck. They would get the puck into the crease area, have it bouncing around, but nothing they did was good enough to beat Thompson a second time. They had another surge in offensive chances to end the second period, but an early penalty in the third sapped momentum before the Capitals found the go-ahead goal. Devin Cooley had to be sharp himself, because the Flames do not ever earn any real chances without also giving some up these days, keeping them in this thing right until the empty net goal for Ovechkin.

Corsi King – Adam Klapka (63.44 per cent) got a 10-minute misconduct in the last frame because he decided to literally poke the bear, Tom Wilson, with his stick from the bench. Fair ejection in my books, shouldn’t be able to mess with guys from the bench in a physical way so I get it. Klapka knows his size and isn’t afraid of anyone in the league, clearly. He intrigues me because he seems to have this arsenal of unlocked offensive skill, but at his age you wonder if it’s ever going to be unlocked consistently or if you have to settle for bottom 6 minutes and hope to see flashes of it emerge from time to time. Other players should be the ones required to lean on offensively, but I always wish I could just get a bit more offensively out of Klapka on a regular basis.

Taken By Chance – Kevin Bahl (45.40 SCF% // 53.93 HDCF%) is very much trying to be the Andersson replacement and to be honest I’m loving what I’m seeing. Having the big guy jumping in the rush, or showing off his skating skills dancing in the attacking zone, has been a delight and something I wish we saw even earlier than this last stretch of games. It earned him involvement in 10 of the Flames 13 high danger chances tonight at 5v5, while seeing only 8 against. He and new partner Zach Whitecloud (39.28 per cent // 48.18 per cent) have been given a lot of heavy minutes and are not sinking by any means. The forwards improving their attack will help the goal differential, but Bahl and Whitecloud are doing their part in getting the offence set up.

xGF% – I liked Nazem Kadri (48.14 per cent) tonight. I thought he got himself more involved than he has been the past few weeks and was close to catching himself some sort of bounce. Of course this increase in offence has come with some egregious turnovers, but that’s happening to literally everybody. The recent slump does lead you to naturally wonder if this is age related regression, but seeing as the slump is a team wide thing and not exclusive to just himself makes it hard for me to go in that direction of thought. If it’s just one player go ahead and speculate about what’s happening, if it’s every single player on the entire roster the finger needs pointed behind the bench. I think we’ve given Huska quite the pass because at least this team used to look like they were competing every single shift, but that’s faded and now they are just a group that can’t score enough to justify the way they play the game of hockey.

In The Crease – Devin Cooley was excellent, he’s almost always been excellent in every game this season. 3.13 expected goals against at 5v5 and he just let in 2. That second goal had to come off a second chance bounce because Cooley was stopping the first shot no matter what happened. If they ever figure out how to score this tandem of Cooley and Wolf could rack up so many wins. The Flames should have the confidence to be more aggressive offensively knowing the skill they have in the pipes on any given night. Trust these guys have your back if you make that risky pinch/play off the boards in the attacking zone. Conclusion: Cooley is awesome and I’m glad he’s here another 2 years after this.

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