The Calgary Flames hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night at the Saddledome. It didn’t go particularly well for the home side.

The Penguins scored first and never trailed, taking advantage of some loose defensive coverage by the Flames in their own zone en route to a 4-1 victory over the Flames.

7:49 into the first period, the Penguins opened the scoring. They cycled the puck in the Flames zone, then Ryan Shea fired the puck towards the net. Evgeni Malkin, with position on MacKenzie Weegar in the slot area, got his stick on the puck and it changed direction (and speed) on its way to the net and fooled Dustin Wolf to make it 1-0 Penguins.

First period shots were 11-5 Penguins. Via Natural Stat Trick, 5v5 scoring chances were 11-8 Flames and high-danger scoring chances were 2-2.

12:32 into the second period, the Penguins scored again. This time, it was a nice little passing play that set up Egor Chinakhov with a clear shooting lane from the high slot. He wired a shot past Wolf to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.

Late in the second, though, the Flames got a glimmer of hope. With 2.7 seconds left, Zach Whitecloud’s point shot deflected off Yegor Sharangovich – we think it hit his pants – and eluded Stuart Skinner to cut the Penguins’ lead to 2-1.

Second period shots were 9-8 Flames. 5v5 scoring chances were 12-10 Penguins and high-danger scoring chances were 3-2 Penguins.

But early in the third period, just 50 seconds in, the visitors expanded their lead. A Bryan Rust wrap-around attempt rattled around the crease area and trickled past Wolf to give Pittsburgh a 3-1 lead.

Tommy Novak made it 4-1 later in the third period, taking advantage of some soft rush defence and chipping the puck over top of Wolf.

The Penguins managed their lead well and skated to a 4-1 win.

Third period shots were 6-5 Penguins. 5v5 scoring chances were 8-4 Penguins and high-danger scoring chances were 4-1 Penguins.

The Flames didn’t have much going on offensively, and they didn’t do very much to challenge Stuart Skinner in the Penguins net. He faced a lot of fairly routine shots. But the big problem was that the Flames just weren’t all that good defensively. Their in-zone defensive coverage afforded the Penguins a ton of time and space, and they took advantage of it.

Dustin Wolf wasn’t great in this game, but he didn’t get a ton of help from the guys in front of him.

We’ll give it to the new guy. Whitecloud’s shot ended up in the back of the Penguins net, by way of a deflection, and he was generally rock-solid in his second outing with the Flames.

The Flames just can’t give up a goal to the Penguins that early in the third period. A late second period goal gave them hope. An early third period goal snuffed it out.

Jonathan Huberdeau missed this game with what the team announced as a lower-body injury. (He’s day-to-day.) Martin Pospisil returned to action after missing the first 49 games of the season with what the team called an undisclosed injury.

This was MacKenzie Weegar’s 600th NHL game.

Join Dean “Boomer” Molberg and Mike Gould right after the game for After Burner!

The Flames (21-24-5) host the Washington Capitals on Friday night.

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