Welcome to Instant Reaction, where we give you our instant reaction to tonight’s Calgary Flames game and ask our readers to do the same in the comments section below!
The Calgary Flames were right there with the Toronto Maple Leafs for the first half of their game on Monday in Toronto. However, the Flames seemed to unravel following a Toronto coach’s challenge in the second period and the Leafs pulled away.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the Flames simply weren’t good enough in a 6-2 road loss to Toronto.

The rundown

The Maple Leafs got an early lead less than two minutes into the first period. Dustin Wolf made a nice save on a Simon Benoit shot, but Max Domi found himself all alone with the rebound on a tee and cranked it past Wolf’s glove hand to give Toronto a 1-0 edge.
Wolf had to be very busy and very good for the Flames in the rest of the period. Late in the period, he made a flurry of in-close saves against the Leafs, and then the Flames headed up ice with numbers. Jonathan Huberdeau made a nifty pass to the slot to Rasmus Andersson, and he fired a shot that got past a sliding Leafs defender and beat Joseph Woll five-hole to tie the game at 1-1.
First period shots were 14-6 Maple Leafs. Via Natural Stat Trick, five-on-five scoring chances were 15-4 Maple Leafs (high-danger chances were 10-1 Flames).
Nine seconds into the second period, on a Leafs rush, Nazem Kadri took a hooking minor. On the resulting power play, Calgary product William Nylander blasted a one-timer past Wolf to make it 2-1 Toronto.
However, the Flames drew a power play a little bit later and they managed to score, after a MacKenzie Weegar point shot was followed by a Morgan Frost rebound shot over a sprawling Woll. That tied it up at 2-2.
Or did it? The Leafs challenged the goal for following an off-side zone entry. Following a lengthy review, it was judged that a zone entry 32 seconds before the goal was off-side and the goal was called back.
A little while after the goal was disallowed, the Leafs kept pushing and eventually they got rewarded. A pass through the neutral zone deflected off a stick and went deep into the Flames zone. Domi chased down the puck and got to it before the Flames and held it behind the net. Huberdeau, Jake Bean and Brayden Pachal all seemed confused as to whose check Domi was, so nobody went after him, and Domi found Nick Robertson entering the slot area with a pass. Robertson fired it past Wolf to give the Leafs a 3-1 lead.
A little while after that, the Flames got caught with six skaters on the ice – that’s a no-no. On the resulting power play, the Leafs moved the puck around superbly, with the Flames chasing them around. Eventually, Auston Matthews waited out an attempted block by Kevin Bahl and picked the top corner (short side) on Wolf to give Toronto a 4-1 lead.
A little after that, Pachal was pulled out of a scrum and given the only minor (for roughing). On the resulting Leafs power play, Matthews fired a feed from Matthew Knies past Wolf to give Toronto a 5-1 lead.
Second period shots were 12-7 Maple Leafs. Five-on-five scoring chances were 10-8 Flames (high-danger chances were 4-2 Maple Leafs).
The Flames swapped goalies after 40 minutes, bringing Dan Vladar into the game and giving Wolf a rest.
Vladar allowed a goal on the very first shot he faced. The Leafs had an extra attacker out on the ice for a delayed penalty after Andersson crashed into Woll. With the extra body to work with, Bobby McMann beat Vladar low to give the home side a 6-1 lead.
The Leafs, knowing they had a ton of breathing room, went into cruise control in the third period and just tried to run out the clock and avoid taxing their netminder too much.
With 47.3 seconds remaining, a Kevin Bahl point shot ricocheted into the Leafs net off Scott Laughton to make it 6-2 Leafs. But that’s as close as the visitors got.
Third period shots were 12-3 Flames. Five-on-five scoring chances were 7-1 Flames (high-danger chances were 2-0 Flames).

Why the Flames lost

We’ve discussed ad nauseum this season that because of their lack of elite-level skill, the Flames have a very slim margin for error in their games – especially when playing a team that has elite players, or depth in terms of skill. Well, the Flames had two big issues in Toronto:
  • They made way too many mistakes at bad times. Leaving Domi open on the rebound on the first goal. Leaving Domi unchecked behind the net on the third goal. The too many men minor leading to the fourth goal. And some undisciplined play that led to the penalty that led to the fifth goal.
  • Their power play simply was not able to do enough to bail the rest of the team out. Mikael Backlund is absent, and so the penalty kill has rapidly become a work in progress after being pretty strong over the past few weeks. When your PK isn’t great, your PP has to be good enough to make up for it a little bit. The Leafs won the special teams battle 3-0. That’s not good enough.
The Flames didn’t get much puck luck, but they really lacked execution, discipline and composure at key moments in this outing.

Red Warrior

Y’know, we’re going to pass on this one.
We don’t really place the blame on the goaltender here and Wolf was superb early on and held his club in this one for awhile, but Wolf also saw five goals get past him. Andersson scored a nice goal, but his penalty led to the sixth Leafs goal. And so on. For virtually everybody in red that did something positive, you could probably wash out their positive contributions with the rest of their games.
With a gigantic chance to take advantage of their games in hand in the playoff chase against a non-conference opponent, the fact that nobody in red stood out for positive reasons is a big disappointment.

Turning point

The Flames completely unravelled following Morgan Frost’s goal being disallowed in the second period.

This and that

Since this was St. Patrick’s Day, the Maple Leafs wore their green and white Toronto St. Pats retro jerseys and the Flames wore their home reds for a rare road game.
Joel Farabee played his 400th NHL game.
This was the first time this season that Ryan Huska has changed goaltenders mid-game.
The Flames’ penalty kill has allowed four goals on eight opposition power play opportunities since Mikael Backlund’s injury early in the Vancouver game.

Up next

The Flames (30-25-11) are headed to the Big Apple! They’re back in action on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers.

This article is brought to you by Platinum Mitsubishi

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