The Calgary Flames began life without their captain on Thursday night with a game against the Nashville Predators. One of the two teams looked desperate to grab a playoff spot – that team was Nashville. The Flames looked fairly lackluster in a 3-2 home loss to the Predators.

The Flames got on the board first, and early! On the game’s first shot on goal, Sam Bennett redirected a Travis Hamonic feed at the top of the blue paint past Juuse Saros to make it 1-0 Flames.

But the lead didn’t last very long. 76 seconds later, the Predators tied things up. The Flames backed into their own zone defending a Nashville rush, which gave Roman Josi tme and space to feed Dante Fabbro. He wandered into the high slot and beat Cam Talbot to make it a 1-1 hockey game.

Nashville took the lead midway through the period on a play that was very similar to their first goal. The Flames got backing into their zone to defend a Predators rush. Mattias Ekholm’s initial shot was blocked by Travis Hamonic, but Kyle Turris jammed home the loose rebound to give the visitors a 2-1 edge.

Shots were 16-12 Flames and scoring chances 11-9 Flames in the first period.

The Flames had an early second period power play but generated very little. That was followed by a Nashville power play that generated a lot. Mikael Granlund jammed in the rebound off a Roman Josi initial shot to give the Predators a 3-1 advantage.

Calgary got one back before the period concluded, though. With a bunch of traffic in front of Saros, Rasmus Andersson sailed a point shot through some bodies and into the Nashville net to cut the visitors’ lead to 3-2.

Shots were 14-11 Flames and scoring chances 7-7 in the second period.

Neither team scored in the third period and Nashville skated away with a 3-2 win.

The Flames played alright, but Nashville seemed to have a lot more jump and desperation to their game. Calgary’s defensive group was still leaky, getting backed into their own zone on both of Nashville’s first two goals.

Let’s go with Andersson. He was full of jump all game.

Let’s go with two.

Data via Natural Stat Trick. Percentage stats are 5v5.

Brandon Davidson dressed in place of an ill Oliver Kylington.

The Flames have 60 points. A 95 point playoff pace through 55 games prorates to 63.7 points, so they’re 3.7 points off a likely playoff pace with 27 games to go.

The Flames (27-22-6) are hitting the road. They’re off to Vancouver for a Saturday night date to kick off a four game Pacific Division road trip.