The Calgary Flames did a few good things on Friday night when they hosted the Chicago Blackhawks. But they had some big systems breakdowns. And they couldn’t solve Spencer Knight.

Despite getting some decent chances, the Flames were blanked for the first time this season as Chicago defeated them on home ice by a 4-0 score.

The Flames had an energetic start to the game, generating some good looks early in the first period but failing to bury those chances. Chicago made some adjustments a few minutes into the game with how they were checking through the neutral zone, and they started to take over the game, though.

Midway through the first period, Rasmus Andersson was called for high-sticking just inside the offensive blueline. Roughly a minute into Chicago’s man advantage, they scored. Connor Bedard threw a nice ankle-high pass towards the net-front area where Tyler Bertuzzi raised up his leg and redirected it off his ankle into the Flames net. That made it 1-0.

(An aside: the redirect off Bertuzzi’s ankle was a legal goal, even with a distinct kicking motion, because it wasn’t deflected into the net off his skate or boot.)

Later in the period, Joel Farabee fought Colton Dach.

First period shots were 11-10 Flames. Via Natural Stat Trick, 5v5 scoring chances were 6-4 Flames and high-danger scoring chances were 3-0 Flames.

MacKenzie Weegar threw a hit on Chicago’s Oliver Moore early in the second period that Moore’s teammate Alex Vlasic didn’t like, leading to a fight. A little later, Nick Foligno threw hits on Zayne Parekh and Connor Zary on the same shift that Joel Hanley didn’t like, leading to a fight.

The second period was, fights aside, fairly evenly-keeled and low-event, though.

Second period shots were 11-7 Flames. 5v5 scoring chances were 6-5 Blackhawks and high-danger scoring chances were 4-2 Blackhawks.

Early in the third period, an odd-man rush for Chicago led to another goal. The Flames were trying to press for offence, but turned the puck over and Chicago headed up ice. Weegar was left back defending a two-on-one. Bedard found Bertuzzi with a cross-ice pass and Bertuzzi launched it over top of a sliding Wolf to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.

Later in the third period, Chicago scored again on an odd-man rush off a Flames turnover in the offensive zone. That time, Farabee was covering the point and couldn’t recover the puck… and also sorta froze, which left Weegar back defending a three-on-one. Andre Burakovsky scored off the rush to make it a 3-0 Chicago lead.

Bedard added a late goal, stealing the puck from Morgan Frost in the Flames’ zone and out-deking Wolf, tucking the puck behind him to make it 4-0 Chicago.

Third period shots were 11-10 Flames. 5v5 scoring chances were 9-4 Flames and high-danger scoring chances were 5-1 Flames.

So two things happened in this game, neither of them particularly good developments.

First, Chicago made an adjustment to their neutral zone checking which really hurt the Flames’ ability to attack with speed and numbers. As a result, they struggled to generate chances off the rush and had to rely on their zone play to get chances.

Second, Chicago got some nice stops from Spencer Knight early in this game, and then they got the lead. That seemed to lead to the Flames trying to press too much to create chances on their offensive zone cycles. Two of their goals against – the second and third Chicago goals – were results of them over-committing and then turning the puck over. In other words: they were impatient with their puck management, and it hurt ’em.

It also doesn’t help that Connor Bedard was on a whole other level in this game.

Matt Coronato was trying so hard to score in this game. He was credited with 11 shots on goal and did a lot of good things. But like the rest of his team, he just couldn’t get one past Spencer Knight.

Bertuzzi’s second goal was a tough one. The Flames were struggling to get pucks past Chicago’s netminder and having a two goal hill to climb was just too much, especially coming directly off a turnover.

The Flames were without Kevin Bahl due to an unspecified malady. They lost Zayne Parekh early in the second period as well.

Join Cami Kepke and Robert Munnich right after the game for After Burner!

The Flames (4-10-2) are hitting the road for a couple of games. They kick off a two game road trip on Sunday night against the Minnesota Wild.

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