The Calgary Flames hosted the Winnipeg Jets on Friday night in each club’s pre-season finale. Both teams dressed pretty much their opening night rosters.
The Flames didn’t generate a ton at even strength for two periods and were chasing heading into the third period, but they battled back to make a game of it. Alas, they ended up allowing a late Jets goal and lost in regulation by a 3-2 score.
The Flames finish their pre-season calendar with a 5-2-1 record.

The rundown

The Jets opened the scoring partway through the first period. Mason Appleton won a foot-race to a 50/50 puck in the corner of the Flames’ zone, then quickly chucked the puck towards the front of the net for a waiting Nino Niederreiter. Niederreiter chipped the puck past Dan Vladar to give the Jets a 1-0 lead.
The game was pretty quiet for awhile on both sides, but the Jets managed to double their lead late in the second period. Rasmus Kupari won an offensive-zone draw back to Colin Miller. Miller’s shot from the point found its way through traffic and past Vladar to give the Jets a 2-0 lead.
But the Flames battled back into this hockey game.
Early in the third period, Daniil Miromanov fired a waist-high shot towards the Jets net. Jonathan Huberdeau got his stick on it and the puck beat Connor Hellebuyck to cut Winnipeg’s lead to 2-1.
A little later, the Flames tied things up on a face-off play. Mikael Backlund won the puck back to Kevin Bahl at the point. Bahl’s point shot was tipped by Backlund past Hellebuyck to tie things up at 2-2.
But the Jets took the lead (again) late in the third period. Kyle Connor fired the puck directly off a face-off win and beat Vladar to give the visitors a 3-2 advantage.
The Jets held on for the 3-2 exhibition victory.

Why the Flames lost

At five-on-five, the Flames didn’t generate very much, especially in the first two periods – Natural Stat Trick credited them with two high-danger 5v5 chances through 40 minutes, which feels about right. And their power play, while generating dangerous looks – especially later in the game – couldn’t get them any goals.
Based on this sample size of the Flames’ NHL roster against another NHL roster, we may see a few evenings like this one during the regular season.

Red Warrior

It’s hard to fault Vladar for any of the goals against. He looked rock-solid and gave his team a chance.
A few others in red looked decent. Among them: Mantha, Bahl, Backlund, and Andersson.

Turning point

It’s hard to choose anything but Connor’s go-ahead goal late in the third period.

This and that

Here’s how the Flames lined up:
Sharangovich-Kadri [A]-Kuzmenko
Huberdeau-Pospisil-Mantha
Zary-Backlund [C]-Honzek
Lomberg-Rooney-Klapka
Weegar [A]-Miromanov
Bahl-Andersson
Bean-Pachal
Dan Vladar started in net, backed up by Dustin Wolf.
Since this game featured basically the entire Game 1 lineup, we (finally) got a good look at both sides of their special teams groups.
  • On the power play, the first unit featured Weegar, Huberdeau, Sharangovich, Kadri and Kuzmenko. The second unit featured Andersson, Backlund, Mantha, Honzek and Zary.
  • On the penalty kill, the first unit was usually Backlund, Rooney, Bahl and Andersson, while the second unit was usually Honzek, Sharangovich, Weegar and Miromanov. (Late in kills, Huberdeau and Pospisil cycled on as the third forward pairing.)
Sharangovich got tangled up awkwardly with Vladislav Namestnikov late in regulation. Head coach Ryan Huska didn’t have any updates on him following the game.

Up next

Meaningful hockey begins for the Flames on Wednesday when the visit the Vancouver Canucks.