The Morning After Colorado

Here’s the rest of the best of what wasn’t covered in the Recap or Rate The Flames from Calgary’s 5-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

Johnny Hot Under The Collar: In a rare moment of frustration, Johnny Gaudreau collected his first 10 Minute Game Misconduct of his career. Gaudreau was slashed in the neck and snapped his head back, earning himself an embellishment penalty. How? No clue, but Gaudreau barked at the officials for a bit and found himself getting the gate with under 10 minutes left in the period. The 12 minutes in PIM he received tonight pushed him to 24 on the season which is a career high for the Flames resident nice guy.

Speaking Of Penalties: The Flames had to kill off 7 penalties on the night which is unacceptable. Sure, the officials were terrible, but the Flames weren’t disciplined at all. Two bench minors were a clear cut example of that. That’s 13 penalties in the last 2 games, luckily they’ve killed off 11 of them.

Good Thing The 3M Line Showed: The 3M Line was the standout unit tonight for the Flames, not that it was hard to be the best. Mikael Backlund collected a goal and an assist, Michael Frolik scored and Matthew Tkachuk collected an assist. They were the ONLY line to collect any points tonight. Good for them, bad for the team.

Another Bad One For Rittich: David Rittich started off well, then the wheels fell off. The Flames starting goalie gave up 4 goals on 18 shots in the second period en rout to his 5th loss in his last 6 starts. He’s given up 21 goals in those 5 losses. Yikes.

Power Play=No Power, No Play: The Flames PP was surging, now it’s not. The Flames were 0-5 on the night in a penalty filled game. That’s a big 0-11 in their last 2 games.

WC Update: The Flames are now 32-24-9, good for 73 points and miraculously only 1 point behind Anaheim who holds the final WC spot in the Western Conference. The Flames are tied with Colorado with 73 points and are behind slumping St. Louis with 74 points.

Highlight Of The Night

Post Game Reaction

by Mark Parkinson