Flames Come Back Late in Dallas, Vladar Gets Needed Win

Calgary Flames 4 @ Dallas Stars 3

Official Stats

Scoring:

1st Period

CGY [1] Lewis (4) (Ruzicka (2), Lucic (7)) 1:54

DAL [1] Hanley (1) (Damiani (1), Kero (3)) 4:26

DAL [2] Robertson (17) (Lindell (11), Heiskanen (23)) 18:12

2nd Period

DAL [3] Benn (11) (Seguin (9), Gurianov (13)) 11:20

3rd Period

CGY [2] Mangiapane (20) (Coleman (7), Hanifin (14)) 14:36

CGY [3] Gaudreau (18) (Tkachuk (25), Lindholm (21)) 15:13

CGY [4] Kylington (5) (Andersson (20), Lindholm (22)) 18:13

Game Notes

-3:37: After being held to just 1 goal through over 50 minutes of play, the Flames cracked Jake Oettinger’s wall 3 times in the span of just over 3 and a half minutes, with the game-winner coming with just a minute and 47 seconds remaining. Calgary opened the scoring, but Dallas responded with a fluky bouncing goal to tie the game. The Stars potted 2 more goals thanks to a beautiful shot by Jason Robertson to close out the first period, before Jaime Benn chipped home another in the second period. Jacob Markstrom finished the second period, but was pulled during the intermission.

-Wladar: Although he was criticized for not having a victory since December 3rd by Darryl Sutter, Dan Vladar had only started 3 games in the 2 month period since then. Two of those games were against top class teams that the Flames as a whole failed against. Tonight he was rewarded by his team’s comeback effort and earned a 5-save victory in relief of Markstrom, but looked poised in the net in the final minute. It seems all but guaranteed he’ll start tomorrow in Arizona.

-Roarin’ 20s: Two 2015 Flames draft picks achieved similar milestones in tonight’s victory. Andrew Mangiapane scored his 20th of the season for the first time in his career, as his goal started the comeback. Rasmus Andersson participated in some wizard-like passing to set up the game-winning goal, and in doing so recorded his 20th assist of the season to also hit that number for the first time. Oliver Kylington’s game winning goal was the 10th marker of his career.

-Redemption: That goal perhaps saved Kylington from some scorn, as he took an ill-advised holding penalty shortly after the Flames had managed to tie the game. As fate would have it, Johnny Gaudreau cleared the puck up through the neutral zone just as he exited the penalty box, and low and behold he stands as tonight’s hero and first star.

-Rewarded: Adam Ruzicka took one extra second with the puck on the Star’s side of neutral ice, and tossed a soft pass to Milan Lucic instead of the typical dump and chase. Looch gave him an equally perfect return pass, and the young Slovakian center sent a delayed cross-crease pass to Trevor Lewis for the game’s first goal. He was rewarded by Sutter with a career high 11:34 ice time, as he now has 3 points in his last 5 games. I don’t think he’ll be coming out of the lineup anytime soon.

-What else can be said?:Just 37 seconds after Mangiapane finally broke through Oettinger, the Flames first line went out and took care of business. Matthew Tkachuk made an elite cut to net to generate a rebound that was all too happily deposited by the red-hot Johnny Gaudreau. He won’t get an assist on the play, but Gaudreau sent the breakout pass that setup the game-winning goal, as the top line generated yet more offence when it was needed. The Flames absolutely need to keep 13 28 and 19 together as long as possible.

by Gordie Taylor