The Calgary Flames began their biggest and most important road trip of the season tonight in Manhattan. What transpired was a tight-checking, pretty entertaining game with a disappointing result, as the Flames dropped a 1-0 shutout decision to the New York Rangers.

Here’s how it went down.

This was as entertaining and frustrating, simultaneously, as 1-0 game gets. For starters, we get one goal to discuss. Basically, in the early third period, Dennis Wideman mis-played a bouncing puck in his own zone and it bounced into the slot, where Kevin Hayes grabbed it and beat Karri Ramo top-shelf.

Ramo had previously made many great saves – particularly in the first 8 minutes of the game, when the Flames were bad and took a penalty and generally weren’t good at all. In fact, Ramo may’ve made himself a pretty decent trade commodity right here:

But anyhow, the Rangers did their best to keep the Flames to the outside and minimize chances, while once they got the lead on that opportunistic goal, they themselves were content to get the puck into the Flames zone and do their best to run down the clock.

Oh, and whether you blame the referees or not, the Flames took more penalties than their opposition – a rare feat this season – and didn’t get a power-play of their own. As a result, their iffy even-strength play was exposed. Thank goodness for Ramo, as this could’ve been worse.

Because the Rangers were better. They generated more chances. They got to loose pucks. They didn’t take penalties. They took advantage of a Flames slip-up and scored the game’s only goal. And when the Flames trailed, they didn’t really change their game very much.

Maybe it’s because they have another game tomorrow, but the third period was pretty flat based on this season’s standards. You have to hold a team accountable to their wins, and the Flames let this one slip away, weird referee calls or not.

Karri Ramo. He made 28 saves, including that gorgeous one early-on. After a few shaky outings, he was money tonight.

Honourable mention to the kids, Michael Ferland and the debuting Emile Poirier. Ferland was physical in 6:59 of ice-time and had a fight with J.T. Miller. Meanwhile, Poirier had a nice chance and played 8:10 in his first NHL appearance.

The Flames lose the first game of their long, long roadie! That makes tomorrow’s game in Newark incredibly important. The only good news is that basically everybody else in the Western playoff race lost tonight, too.

Thank goodness for little miracles.

22 games to go in the regular season.