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The Calgary Flames haven’t had a very good week on the road. Despite having some good moments in each of their last four outings away from the Scotiabank Saddledome, the Flames just haven’t gotten the consistency – or results – they had hoped for.
The Flames drew the curtain on a frustrating road trip on Saturday night in Pittsburgh, losing to the Penguins by a 6-2 score. The Flames head home with just a single point to show for a four game road trip.
The rundown
The Flames had some strong moments in the opening period. They pushed and made some nice offensive zone plays, but Penguins netminder Alex Nedeljkovic was sharp.
Case in point? This great glove stop on Rasmus Andersson off a rebound from the end boards.
Late in the first period, though, the Penguins took advantage of a Flames miscue and pounced. Off an offensive zone face-off win, the puck blooped between the legs of Daniil Miromanov. He wasn’t able to corral the puck in the neutral zone and Blake Lizotte and Anthony Beauvillier headed in against MacKenzie Weegar on an odd-man rush. Beauvillier got the pass from Lizotte and went over Dan Vladar’s shoulder (and under the bar) to make it 1-0 Penguins.
First period shots were 13-10 Penguins. Via Natural Stat Trick, five-on-five scoring chances were 14-7 Flames (high-danger chances were 3-2 Flames).
Early in the second period, Connor Zary took a slashing minor. Immediately off the face-off, Vladar stopped a shot from Matt Grzelcyk, but Michael Bunting jammed in the rebound to make it 2-0 Penguins.
Awhile later, Brayden Pachal put the puck over the glass in the Flames’ zone and took a delay of game minor. On the resulting Penguins man advantage, Vladar laid out to make the initial save, but he wasn’t able to recover quickly – nor were the Flames’ defenders able to corral the loose puck – and Philip Tomasino had an open net and ages to get a shot off. He buried his chance to make it 3-0 Penguins.
Second period shots were 17-10 Penguins. Five-on-five scoring chances were 10-4 Penguins (high-danger chances were 3-1 Penguins).
Early in the third period, Jake Bean made a nice read to halt a Sidney Crosby rush chance. However, he didn’t close out Crosby entirely, and he fired a backhand pass to a streaking Rikard Rakell, who chipped the puck over Vladar to make it 4-0 Penguins.
Awhile later, with Kevin Rooney in the sin bin, Kris Letang made it 5-0 Penguins.
Jonathan Huberdeau snapped Nedeljkovic’s shutout bid late in the third period, putting a Nazem Kadri pass inside the post behind the Penguins netminder. That cut the Penguins’ lead to 5-1.
38 seconds later, the Flames scored again! A Kevin Bahl point shot went into a crowd of players in front of Nedeljkovic. In the confusion, Kadri collected the puck and chipped it past Nedeljkovic to cut the lead to 5-2 Penguins.
But that’s all the Flames could muster. Lizotte scored a late goal with 97 seconds left in regulation to give the Penguins a 6-2 lead.
Third period shots were 13-12 Penguins. Five-on-five scoring chances were 9-6 Penguins (high-danger chances were 5-4 Flames).
Why the Flames lost
The Flames never had a lead in this game. They didn’t do a whole lot at five-on-five or on special teams to make life challenging for the Penguins’ netminder for most of this game. When they finally started creating traffic and using their forecheck to create havoc, they were able to get something going offensively. But it was just too little, too late.
Oh, and giving up three power play goals is never a recipe for success.
Red Warrior
We’re gonna give this one jointly to the vets: Kadri and Huberdeau. They each scored a goal and the most dangerous the Flames looked was in the third period once Huberdeau swapped spots with Andrei Kuzmenko and joined Kadri and Martin Pospisil on their line.
Turning point
We’re going to say “the first period.” The Flames had energy and zone time and chances, but couldn’t get anything past Nedeljkovic. Had they gotten some early goals, perhaps this game would’ve turned out differently.
This and that
The Flames’ power play scoring streak ended after seven goals in six games. Their power play goals allowed streak is up to five games, though, a streak in which they’ve allowed nine opposition power play goals.
Up next
The Flames (12-9-4) are headed home. They’ll host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night.
