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Calgary Flames Post-Game: Flames vanquished by Hurricanes
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Photo credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports
Ryan Pike
Mar 10, 2024, 19:48 EDT
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The Calgary Flames were hoping to shake off a bad outing in Florida when they headed to Raleigh to visit the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday afternoon. It didn’t turn out that way, as the Flames were pretty thoroughly out-played for the first 25-30 minutes and couldn’t put together a comeback in a 7-2 loss to Carolina.
The Flames ended up experiencing a pair of lopsided losses during their three game eastern road trip.

The rundown

The Flames had a rough first period. They barely had the puck. They were thoroughly out-played. They didn’t register their first shot on goal until 15:19 into the game. And, as you might expect, they ended up giving up the game’s first goal. (And second.)
The Hurricanes opened the scoring off a superb offensive play that the Flames completely fell for. On a two-on-two rush, Sebastian Aho faked a shot and Brayden Pachal went down to block it, so Aho skated around him. That led to a sequence where Pachal and Kylington both chased Aho, which left Jordan Martinook wide-open for a pass and he buried the feed past Dan Vladar to make it 1-0 Carolina.
Later in the period, the Hurricanes struck again. This time, a dump-in on a line change bounced on Pachal and he struggled to corral the puck. Carolina stole the puck and after a nice little give-and-go play, Teuvo Teravainen fed Aho and he finished the passing sequence with a shot that beat Vladar to make it 2-0 Carolina.
First period shots were 16-2 Hurricanes (13-1 Hurricanes at five-on-five) and, via Natural Stat Trick, five-on-five scoring chances 13-1 Hurricanes (high-dangers were 6-1 Hurricanes).
Carolina scored 17 seconds into the second period. Jordan Staal exited the penalty box after a late first period minor penalty and joined the ‘Canes attack. The puck got funnelled to the point and Jalen Chatfield’s point shot with some traffic beat Vladar to make it 3-0 Hurricanes.
Less than a minute later, MacKenzie Weegar got caught up ice and Andrei Svechnikov went in on a two-on-one with Aho against Rasmus Andersson. Svechnikov fired Aho’s pass past Vladar to make it 4-0 Hurricanes.
Ryan Huska called a timeout and shuffled his forward lines a bit, and it resulted in a goal!
Kylington jumped into the rush and put a really nice cross-zone pass on Dryden Hunt’s stick. Hunt buried the feed past Frederik Andersen to put the Flames on the board and cut Carolina’s lead to 4-1.
But shortly after that, the Hurricanes scored again. After a face-off win, Brent Burns cranked a shot from the left point that beat Vladar clean to extend the home team’s lead to 5-1.
And in the final minute of the second period, the Hurricanes created an odd-man rush off a Flames turnover in the neutral zone and Seth Jarvis beat Vladar to give Carolina a 6-1 lead heading into the second intermission.
Second period shots were 14-8 Hurricanes (12-7 Hurricanes at five-on-five) and five-on-five scoring chances were 8-7 Flames (high-dangers were 3-2 Flames).
The Flames pressed here and there in the third period, but couldn’t really get much out of it.
Yegor Sharangovich cut the ‘Canes lead to 6-2 after the puck rolled on Andersen as he was trying to pass the puck in his own zone.
Teravainen added a goal late, booting the puck into the air and whacking it from mid-air past Vladar to make it a 7-2 win for the Hurricanes.
Third period shots were 12-9 Hurricanes.

Why the Flames lost

The Flames were playing their second game in as many days, but so were the Hurricanes. The Flames were playing their third game in four days, but so were the Hurricanes. The difference was that the Flames didn’t do nearly enough to make life difficult for the Hurricanes. Early on, the Flames were tentative. And once the Hurricanes got their legs under them, they were poised, tactical and confident.
The Flames didn’t really find their legs or their game until they were down four goals. And that’s never a recipe for success. And, again, much like the loss in Florida, with how depleted the Flames’ lineup is right now after all the trades, some games are going to look like this.
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Red Warrior

Hunt scored a goal and looked pretty decent here and there, so by default we’re giving it to him.

Turning point

The entire first period was pretty humbling for the Flames. They looked completely overwhelmed and it set them behind the eight-ball for the remainder of the contest.

This and that

Martin Pospisil served the third and final game of his suspension.
Early in the second period, Brayden Pachal fought Carolina’s Brendan Lemieux. It didn’t go great for Pachal.
Meanwhile, in Calgary, Wranglers play-by-play voice Sandra Prusina shared that Miikka Kiprusoff’s banner has been moved to its permanent home:

Up next

The Flames (31-28-5) are headed home. They host the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night at the ‘Dome.

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