The Flames did not put in a performance as impressive as their effort the night before. Though, honestly, it’s tough to blame them for that: they were playing the second of a back-to-back, having to travel late from Toronto because their earlier game went all the way to an extra rounds shootout. If anything, they were set up to lose.

But hey. They persevered. And while it was far from perfect, every little thing they can do at this point counts. And the two points count a little more.

Garnet Hathaway got the credit for tying the game, while David Rittich is 2-0 when he starts an NHL game.

First, hey, that goal challenge? Thank goodness the NHL got it right and Glen Gulutzan and company were confident enough to push for it. Forcing a video review was crucial, and injected new life into the Flames once they had tied it.

They had been pushing up to that point, but it was a brand new game once it was tied. Via HockeyStats:

But anyway, back to Hathaway. Thanks to whatever it is that’s ailing Jaromir Jagr this time, he’s gotten to play two games alongside Sam Bennett and Mark Jankowski, both of whom appear to be having little resurgences to their game, as well. Hathaway’s doing, or a coincidence? … Probably a coincidence, but that doesn’t take away from his great game, complete with five shots on net.

Unless he’s an extremely late bloomer, though, it’s difficult to see Hathaway as a long-term solution. Don’t fall into the trap of recency bias. Credit where credit is due, but at the same time, don’t forget the cautionary tale that was Lance Bouma.

Rittich, on the other hand, got burned a couple of times on the night – he probably shouldn’t have let either goal in – but he, in his second career start, did make 35 saves, up from the 24 on 26 shots he had in his first go. You can tell that he’s still pretty green, but he’s playing well overall, and the Flames do need a backup they can rely on. Is Rittich the guy? It’s still probably too early to tell, but so far, so good.

With two goals last night, Sean Monahan is up to 17 total this season. That’s tied with John Tavares for third in the NHL, albeit in one more game played; Nikita Kucherov has 19, and Alex Ovechkin has 21.

So… that’s the company Monahan is in. With a 20.48% shooting percentage. Which is roughly in line with Tavares and Kucherov (not Ovechkin, Ovechkin shoots the puck a lot more). He’s also the second Flame this season to reach 30 points, trailing Johnny Gaudreau by seven. He’s in the top 20 in NHL scoring.

Monahan is currently on pace for 48 goals this season, and 85 points. I’m not sure if a 50-goal season happens, or if he ends up as a point-per-game guy, but you have to love where he’s at right now. You could see the game ending in advance when Gaudreau slid the puck over to Monahan coming up from behind everyone – there was zero chance he didn’t bury that puck. What a talent.

It looked like the Flames had the game handed to them when Phillip Danault cleared the puck over the glass. A minute-long five-on-three, when they had already been pressing to take the lead, with less than 10 minutes to go? That’s a win, right there. The Flames have a powerplay clicking along one-in-five times aaaaand they kind of just wandered around with the puck and aside from a Monahan ping off the post didn’t do anything of note.

They did change up the powerplay personnel: Troy Brouwer was moved off of the first unit, and Mark Giordano came on. The second unit saw Dougie Hamilton and Michael Stone out there. That probably won’t be a regular thing – Matthew Tkachuk has a spot on the powerplay, after all, and Jagr should be out there when healthy – but it was an interesting time to decide to switch things up when that could have been the game right there.

Brodie still played more than double what Giordano and Hamilton did on the powerplay, though. Which should never be a thing. Ever. Because he can be really good, but his offensive instincts just aren’t on the same level. And when you’re in position to pretty much take a game then and there, you go for the jugular – and the Flames did not.

The good thing is that when Matthew Tkachuk is suspended, the Flames win the game in overtime. They’ve done that both times this year.

The bad news is, well, their overall lineup suffers, because Tkachuk is a very good player who adds a lot on the ice, and not just in the way of drawing penalties and trolling the other team. (He looked pretty chastised before the game, though, so hopefully that’s the end of that nonsense.)

With Jagr and Kris Versteeg out, the Flames had very few options available – and so, Brouwer drew in to the top six, playing 16:55. He also sunk Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik down to sub-40% 5v5 CFs, which was, well, predictable. Both players shot up to near 60% when they were away from him, albeit in only roughly a minute and a half of ice time. So extremely small sample sizes – but uh, Tkachuk is a better player than Brouwer, and sometimes, miracles aren’t possible.

Also, speaking of very few options available, the Flames had a short bench on the second of a back-to-back. The fourth line didn’t even get a whiff of eight minutes. Stone and Brett Kulak played 12:09 and 11:28, respectively. Glen Gulutzan leaned on his top players; it’s nice they came through, but does speak to some concerns about depth.

Mental fragility has been a big thing with this team the past week, which is always fun to speculate on. And it kind of looked like they were headed down that road once again, failing to leave the first period with a lead and giving up a goal two minutes after scoring their first one. The game entered a kind of lull when Montreal scored their second to take the lead, as well.

But the Flames did come out roaring for the third, and were eventually, through some coercing, rewarded for their efforts. They didn’t really look back after that. Not that they shut Montreal down entirely, but the Flames looked like a team giving it their all again, and they were actually entertaining to watch, and it was nice.

Hopefully that’s this year’s turning of the corner. Don’t really need to go through all of this all over again.