After a day that featured demotions, scratches, returns, unscratches, babies and a goaltending change forced by an injury, the Calgary Flames dropped a 3-2 decision at home to the Detroit Red Wings. It was the final game of the first half of this season, and the second straight game where the club came across a little flat.

The Flames now sit at 21-17-3 through 41 games.

Prior to the game, Jiri Hudler was pulled from the line-up due to his wife going into labour, replacing him with previously-scratched David Jones and basically causing the team’s lines to be a jumble all evening long.

The Flames came out of the gate with a lot of energy in the first chunk of the first period. They out-hustled the Red Wings and skated circles around them, the exact thing you’d want to do against a team that played last night – particularly if your team has had four days off. The returning Mason Raymond opened the scoring early; Raymond, Backlund and Jones entered the zone cleanly and Raymond collected his own rebound, skated around the net and tucked it neatly behind Petr Mrazek for a 1-0 lead. This lead only lasted five minutes, as Riley Sheahan calmly waltzed around Deryk Engelland and shelved a shot over Karri Ramo’s shoulder to tie it up at 1-1. Sheahan’s goal was really pretty, to be honest.

The second period was rather reminiscent of the second period against the Islanders, in that the Flames didn’t generate much and spent a lot of time in their own end defending. Midway through the period, Karri Ramo rushed to play a puck in the high slot and collided with Raphael Diaz, who was racing a Red Wings player in from the neutral zone. Ramo left the game and didn’t return, being replaced by Jonas Hiller. Henrik Zetterberg finally scored on one of Detroit’s chances, shelving a nice set-up from Justin Abdelkader to make it 2-1.

The teams exchanged goals in the third period. Abdelkader scored on a rebound on the power-play early in the period to make it 3-1. Mikael Backlund and Paul Byron had a nice two-on-one on a shorthanded sequence and Backlund converted a back-hander past Mrazek to make it 3-2, but the Flames didn’t get any closer and couldn’t bury their chances late.

Two main reasons: they weren’t all that energetic beyond the first five minutes of the game or the last ten (reminiscent of the Islanders game), and their power-play was no damn good. Let’s be blunt here: they had eight minutes of power-play time against a team that played last night in a different city. They generated just five shots and zero goals. That’s not enough to win games.

Heck, their penalty kill generated more goals than their power-play. That’s terrifying.

Mikael Backlund had a goal, an assist, a +1 rating, a few good long looks at the net, 17:54 in ice time and was 53% at the face-off dot. All that in his first game since October 28. Good work, Mickis.

The Flames lost! Again! They won’t have four days to stew in their misfortunes like last time, though. They’re back at it on Friday night when they host the Florida Panthers to kick off the back half of the docket.