Instant Reaction: Flames grind out late night win over the Kings

The Calgary Flames kicked off a three game California road trip on Saturday night against the Los Angeles Kings. It was the late game on Sportsnet’s Saturday Night Hockey, and the game was a bit of a grind at times.

But the Flames got saves at key times and goals at key times en route to a 3-2 victory over the Kings to climb, yet again, a game shy of the .500 mark.

The first period was a poor example of National Hockey League action, with both teams mostly doing cardio but neither really generating a lot. Neither team’s goalie had to be especially sharp, and it was more a triumph of defensive structure over offensive talent.

The second period was more chaotic, with the defensive structure occasionally breaking down for both teams, leading to cycle plays and rush chances at both ends of the ice.

The game’s opening goal came 2:13 into second period. A hit from Adam Klapka at the Kings blueline led to a turnover and an odd-man rush. Yegor Sharangovich made a pass to Morgan Frost, and Frost wired a shot past Anton Forsberg. That made it 1-0 Flames.

Dustin Wolf was on the wrong end of a few Kings odd-man rushes, but he anticipated the plays really well and the defenders that were left back to play the odd-man rushes did a good job of limiting the offensive options and then clearing out the net-front area after the initial chances.

A few minutes into the third period, the Kings tied the game off a transition rush play and a bad defensive read. Zayne Parekh had jumped into the play and so Ryan Strome cycled back to defend with Yan Kuznetsov. On an Alex Laferriere zone entry, both Kuznetsov and Strome went to play the man, which left a trailing Joel Armia entirely open for a pass and rush towards the net. He fired the puck past Wolf to tie things up at 1-1.

Five minutes later, the Flames retook the lead. After an initial scoring chance, Martin Pospisil made a nice second effort, whacking the puck off a Kings’ defender’s stick. The puck drifted right over to an alert Matvei Gridin, who fired it past Forsberg to make it 2-1.

The Kings pulled Forsberg for the extra attacker and pressed for the equalizer, but the Flames managed to box them out and create a turnover. Pospisil narrowly missed an empty-net chance, but Sharangovich stole the puck back from the Kings and fired it into the open net to make it 3-1 Flames.

The Kings called a timeout and then went back to the attack. A point shot through traffic hit a player and ricocheted out to Mats Zuccarello, who fired it past a sprawling Wolf to cut the Flames’ lead to 3-2.

But that’s case close to the home side got, and the Flames held on for the road win.

The Flames found a way to win ugly. It helps that Dustin Wolf was excellent. But at key times, the Flames made smart plays. If you wind the tape back, all three Flames goals came because they made alert plays to create turnovers.

The Flames weren’t all that good offensively overall, their power play was a bit flat, and their in-zone defence got a bit shaky as the game wore on and the Kings pressured. But this was a game they’ll probably look back on and feel good about because they found a way to buckle down at key moments and do what it took to win.

Dustin Wolf was really, really good in this game. He made key saves, he tracked the puck really well, and he had strong rebound control. He was exactly what the Flames needed him to be against the Kings.

Yegor Sharangovich made a second effort to steal a puck prior to scoring his empty-netter. It ended up, improbably, standing as the game-winner.

The Flames looked like this against Los Angeles:

Joel Farabee – Mikael Backlund [C] – Matt Coronato
Matvei Gridin – Martin Pospisil – Ryan Strome
Yegor Sharangovich – Morgan Frost – Adam Klapka
William Strömgren – Jonathan Castagna – Aydar Suniev

Joel Hanley – Simon Nemec
Jake Middleton [A] – Zach Whitecloud [A]
Yan Kuznetsov – Zayne Parekh

Devin Cooley started in net, backed up by Dustin Wolf. The healthy extras were Brayden Pachal, Brennan Othmann and Maxim Tsyplakov. Jonathan Huberdeau and Kevin Bahl missed the game with injuries.

Kings netminder Darcy Kuemper was honoured before the game for recently playing his 500th career NHL game.

Due in part to that ceremony, puck drop was at 9:19 p.m. ABT, the latest start so far this season for the Flames. It ended at 11:56 p.m. ABT.

Sportsnet couldn’t get a crew to Los Angeles because of the FAA ground stop order on Friday, so Sportsnet carried the Kings’ television feed instead.

Join Jordan and Mike from the In The Dome podcast right after the game for After Burner!

The Flames (9-10-1) will head to Anaheim and try to get back to the .500 mark for the first time since early January when they visit the Ducks on Sunday evening.

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