The Morning After The Islanders

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 NY Islanders.

Mike Smith Returns

And it probably wasn’t what anyone expected. Smith didn’t get a lot of help, but giving up 2 goals in under 30 seconds was a killer. Sure, the Flames got one back, but it’s hard to climb out of that kind of demoralizing hole. We should allow a little time for Smith to get back on his feet, but it’s tough to lose games this time of year.

Power Play Woes

The Flames were given 4 PP opportunities and they whiffed on all 4. After playing well with the man advantage for a few games the Flames have gone back to their old ways. The 0-4 against NY now puts them at 1 goal in the their last 24 chances on the power play.

What’s With The Backups?

The Flames had a golden opportunity in front of them tonight. The Islanders had lost 8 in a row and were starting Christopher Gibson who had all of 4 NHL starts under his belt last night. In his 2 starts this season he was 0-0-2, yet the Flames couldn’t solve him more than twice. Calgary put 52 shots on net, yet the keeper with no wins in the NHL managed to stop 50 shots. This seems to happen all too often with the Flames and is a fairly disturbing trend.

There Is Some Good News

The silver lining is the Flames didn’t lose much ground in the Western Conference playoff race. They are still 1 point behind 9th place LA and 2 points behind Colorado for the 8th and final playoff spot.

Highlight Of The Night

Post Game Reaction

by Mark Parkinson