It was an afternoon of mixed blessings for the Calgary Flames as they closed out the Young Stars Classic tournament in Penticton. The Flames scored three times against the Winnipeg Jets, but defensive miscues continued and they lost the finale of the event by a 5-3 score.
The rundown
The Flames opened the scoring off a nice play; Emilio Pettersen fed the puck to the left point for Christoffer Sedoff. With Adam Klapka parked in front, Sedoff’s shot found the far side of the net past Jets netminder Domenic Divincentiis to make it 1-0.
But before the period ended, the Flames got a bit scrambly and disorganized in their own zone. Daniil Chechelev made a big save on a three-on-one chance (caused by an Ilya Solovyov errant pass) but Brad Lambert buried the rebound to tie the game at 1-1.
In the second, the Jets took the lead after Jeremie Poirier’s errant pass was collected by Tyler Boland. He found Chaz Lucius in the slot for a nice quick goal to give Winnipeg a 2-1 advantage.
But Jakob Pelletier tied things up early in the third period, redirecting a Poirier point shot to make it 2-2.
But a little later, Cole Perfetti beat Chechelev to give the Jets a 3-2 lead. Pettersen responded back, again taking advantage of a Klapka wall in front of Divincentiis to make it 3-3.
But the Flames couldn’t hold on. Greg Meireles scored off an odd-man play to give the Jets a 4-3 lead, and Boland added an empty-netter to cement the 5-3 victory.
Why the Flames lost
It was the same old story as the first two games, unfortunately. The Flames’ defensive players were a bit too shaky with their puck management and coverage away from the puck, giving the Jets a few too many strong scoring chances.
Red Warrior
Let’s give it to Klapka, who was instrumental in two of Calgary’s three goals. But also give stick-taps to Pettersen and Pelletier, who had their best games thus far in this event.
This and that
Lines for the Flames:
Pelletier [A]-Zary-Duehr [A]
Pettersen-Schwindt [A]-Klapka
Ciona-Nikolaev-Beck
Huckins-Walker-Feuk
Solovyov-Whynot
Kuznetsov-Poirier
Sedoff-Jordan
Daniil Chechelev was in net, backed up by Brad Arvanitis.
Lines for the Jets:
Cutler-Zhilkin-Bertholet
Lambert-Perfetti-Meireles
Torgersson-Nikkanen-Bongiovanni
Johnson-Lucius-Boland
Kuzmin-Lundmark
Wilson-Kubicek
Cap-Bauer
Domenic Divincentiis started in net, backed up by Arvid Holm.
Up next
The Flames are headed home! Main camp opens with medicals on Wednesday and on-ice segments on Thursday. The pre-season begins on Sunday night with split squad games against the Canucks both in Calgary and Vancouver.
