Instant Reaction: Flames can’t get their offence going against Rangers

The Calgary Flames concluded their three game homestand on Wednesday evening at the Scotiabank Saddledome, hosting the New York Rangers for the final time at their long-time arena. In a fairly tight-checking game with the visitors clogging up the middle of the ice, the Flames just couldn’t find a way to get their even strength offence going.

The Flames lit the lamp on the power play, but lost 3-1 to the Rangers.

Early in the first period, Zayne Parekh nearly made a goal happen all by his lonesome. He dangled between some Rangers players in the offensive zone, then whooshed around behind the net and emerged with a wrap-around attempt that Rangers netminder Joonas Korpisalo stopped with a diving blocker save.

Otherwise, it was kind of a snoozer of a second period, with both teams clogging up the middle of the ice and muddling their way through all three zones.

The Rangers opened the scoring early in the second period. Off a rush play, Devin Cooley cheated off his post a bit, anticipating that Mika Zibanejad would pass across to Alexis Lafreniere. Instead, Zibanejad opted to slide the puck into the crease, bonking it in off of Cooley’s pad to make it 1-0 Rangers.

Later in the period. Ryan Strome took a holding minor. Right after the offensive zone draw, won by the Rangers, Zibanejad one-timed a feed past Cooley’s glove to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead.

In the third period, the Flames drew a penalty and after a few decent looks from the first unit, the second unit scored. Adam Klapka parked himself in front of the net, and Strome made a nice pass from below the goal line, which Klapka tapped past Korpisalo to cut the Rangers’ lead to 2-1.

The Flames pulled Cooley for the extra attacker, but couldn’t muster enough chances to draw even. Tye Kartye scored a late empty-netter and the Rangers won 3-1.

The Rangers did a great job of clogging up the neutral zone and forcing the Flames to play on the outside. The Flames just weren’t able to do enough to break up the Rangers’ neutral zone scheme, instead trying to play through coverage and not getting enough going at five-on-five.

We’ll go with Zayne Parekh. He was dynamic and fun to watch yet again.

Mika Zibanejad’s second goal in the second period, a one-timer on the power play, was a tough one for the Flames to give up when they did. It put them down 2-0, and left them chasing for the rest of the contest.

The Flames looked like this against the NY Rangers:

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

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

Devin Cooley started in net, backed up by Dustin Wolf. The healthy extras were Brayden Pachal, William Strömgren and Maxim Tsyplakov. Jonathan Huberdeau and Kevin Bahl.

This was regular season game 1,667 at the Saddledome, tying the historic facility with the Pittsburgh Civic Arena (The Igloo) for seventh in NHL history for regular season games hosted.

Join Cami Kepke and Mike Gould right after the game for After Burner!

The Flames (8-10-1) are headed back on the road! They kick off a three game California swing on Saturday night when they visit the Los Angeles Kings.

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