The Calgary Flames scored 4 goals for the first time since October in a come from behind victory over the Nashville Predators.

It’s a Team Game – The Flames came to play in this one and Nashville gave them a push… for about the first period. The Predators took the second period through until they pulled their goalie off. Just stopped pressing on the attack, pitiful power play execution, truly a terrible performance. Calgary never made their night easy at any step of the way. Flames players were laying out to block shots left, right, and centre while Dan Vladar became a steel trap after the third goal went in. It was a game that fixed the vibes for a little bit as it broke the streak of 25 games without scoring more than 3 goals as well as breaking an eight-game road losing streak. Good play and good vibes.

Corsi King – Connor Zary (79.73 CF%) continues to be a consistent offensive option, pushing play into the attacking zone regularly. When he can figure out how to finish consistently, he’ll be quite the offensive driver. It was good to see Andrei Kuzmenko (77.91 per cent) get positive results. He reminds me a ton of Nail Yakupov, uncontrolled chaos that can sometimes be positive, but you can’t have any trust to know what exactly he is going to do next. I’m rooting for him, but good chance ratios don’t fill the net with pucks – that still needs to happen.

Taken By Chance – Zary (100 SCF% || 100 HDCF%) and his line cooked up one heck of a game. Not a single 5v5 scoring chance against and over 6 high danger chances for. Not even close for the Predators. Like I said in the lead, the Predators basically quit on bringing a real effort to this game in the second period. Two defence pairs also didn’t face a 5v5 high danger chance against – Weegar’s (70.07 per cent || 100 per cent) pair as well as goal scorer Brayden Pachal’s (100 per cent || 100 per cent) pairing. That’s some high-quality minutes with next to nothing dangerous going on. The Predators record – and how they played this game – suggest they are a bottom 5 team, so it was good Calgary was up to the challenge.

xGF% – Every single skater in this match ended up on the positive side of the quality share. Six skaters finished over 90% which means in their 5v5 minutes they only saw 10% of the quality go back towards their own net. Shoutout to Martin Pospisil (75.87 per cent) who has started to showcase his speed more recently. He’s working out really well with Huberdeau (64.39 per cent) and Kadri (71.07 per cent). The Flames fourth line were the big stars in this one. Walker Duehr (58.05 per cent) flashed with a vintage play from the year he broke into the NHL – using his speed on the wing and getting pucks towards the net. Pelletier (63.03 per cent) also was shifty and displayed great vision in his minutes. Their night ended early with it being a tight game, but they contributed and helped the Flames get the win.

In The Crease – It wasn’t a banner night on the scoresheet for Vladar, but he was absolutely locked in late. Dodging, ducking, dipping, diving, and dodging all over the crease to make every save he possibly could. He’s got the title of current number one man for the Flames and it isn’t looking like too much of a challenge for him. He’s living up to the potential the Flames saw in him when they acquired him from Boston. As the only pending UFA on the team with any real value he’s worth monitoring closely as we get into February. 0.81 expected goals against with three getting past him – and the big W.