The Calgary Flames looked out of sorts all night long and the Toronto Maple Leafs took advantage, defeating the home squad 6-3.

It’s a Team Game – This is not a loss directly caused from fatigue, or from the quality of goaltending, or even from the coaches’ decisions making. This loss is on the entire team just continually messing up in routine fashion from puck drop to the final horn. It was as sloppy and out of touch as the Flames had been at any point this season. Turnovers were a major factor whether they were passes that missed everyone and sprung on odd man rush or they were bad pinches leaving your partner on an island to fend for himself with three or four attackers bearing down. The bottom of the league penalty kill torched them again and their defence was exposed in a major way. Rough night as the hordes of Leafs fans got to win the fight for cheers as Flames fans filtered to the exits early.

Corsi King – Jonathan Huberdeau (59.51 CF%) gets into these modes where he gets hyper intense and just weaves through traffic with the puck on his stick. Like he went into hero mode in NHL 2004 and can’t be stopped. He’s flashed that ability a few times since coming to the Flames but not always. He had it on full display in the third period as the Flames tried to press for the comeback. It reminds me of why he was able to get to 100 points once upon a time in Florida. Maybe Joel Farabee (54.93 per cent) being such a north/south threat is bringing back his itch to get some rush chance goals. That’s not – and never has been – the modus operandi of Nazem Kadri (54.23 per cent) who loves to play a high possession, board protected game. They were the clear best line for the Flames in this one so the dynamic of all three of them combined was working.

Taken By Chance – Usually I try to peruse through the final results for a few clear winners to highlight. There’s not that many in this one so it makes it easy – the fourth line kudos for not allowing a high danger chance in their very limited ice time. Then there’s one pair of defencemen in MacKenzie Weegar (61.31 SCF% || 20.12 HDCF%) and Joel Hanley (29.03 per cent || 20.77 per cent). No, they do not play together, but those two are the only players in significant roles that didn’t allow a 5v5 goal against. Weegar’s fumble at the end to give Calgary born William Nylander a hat trick was just a nice thing to do as well – a generous guy. Reality was the majority of the team struggled to do much of anything and certainly had no clue how to resist the Leafs walking into scoring areas all night long.

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xGF% – The forward lines really, I have very little faults for other than a lack of scoring. The defence of the Flames caused most of the primary errors that led to goals. There was a communication issue between Kadri (59.87 xGF%) and Andersson (23.96 per cent) on one of the goals, but they solved the issue by yelling what I could only presume to be really nice words of encouragement at each other. Farabee (59.23 per cent) deserves a second shout-out as well. He was billed as a player who took a lot of shots and took them around and close to the crease. Both goals – the one called off and the one that counted – Farabee was in the area code of the blue paint. Finally, someone with the Flaming C on their chest willing to go there consistently and often. Last, we continue to celebrate the breakout season of Matt Coronato (42.26 per cent) who scored on the power play. Tremendous positioning – should probably get a few more primary puck touches on the man advantage.

In The Crease – Not a great day of work for Dustin Wolf. For the first time since (I’m estimating here) November I’m thinking there was at least two or more goals Wolf could have been able to stop. The goaltender interference that was not challenged for reasons unknown at time of writing was about the only goal Wolf got a real pass on. Most goals were simple shots off the rush that beat him clean. Good thing it’s only just one loss, throw it in the column it belongs in and move on to the next game. 1.97 expected goals against at 5v5 with three getting behind him – Wolf will rebound.