As many fans anticipated, the Calgary Flames lost to the Dallas Stars last night 4-3 as they couldn’t recover after Dallas took an early 3-0 lead and are now winless throughout seven games on the road. Furthermore, the Flames have yet to compile more than a two game win streak which continues to be daunting with respect to the thought of playoffs.
Calgary had the opportunity to move past four teams in the West and that’s a game they can’t lose. In my opinion, this loss equates to no post season play for the Flames because not even a six game winning streak at home would eclipse seven consecutive losses on the road. The gravity of the loss was reportedly not lost on the team, who were all pretty quiet after the game.
The loss aggravated a generally calm Hartley and he was none too pleased after the game; saying:
“…we have to learn to play defense. If we can’t play in our own zone it’s pretty tough to win games. That’s where championship teams start the building blocks.”
Hartley is exactly right; their defense has been a huge issue this season and they are just not strong enough in their own end. There have been countless goals like Erik Cole’s in the 1st. You simply can’t leave players open in front of the net because their chances of converting are drastically higher. The forwards also need to do a better job adding pressure by back checking, though the bottom line has been the same for the Flames this season - consistency.
Last night they were virtually invisible in the 1st and they were outshot 12-5. The Flames should be embarrassed by their 1st period of play and no matter how hard they fight to come back, if you can’t play 3 full periods, you don’t deserve to win. With their revolving roster and disjointed play, the Flames have zero consistency. They can’t expect to win being as incompatible as they’ve displayed especially as they struggle to stick to a game plan.
A team that wants and deserves to go to the playoffs, shows up for the each and every period of a big game. Even though Hartley stressed not focusing on how Dallas did Saturday night against Chicago, the Flames should have picked right up where Chicago left off and they should have been relentless in the 1st with constant pressure on net and the opposing body.
Either way, the Flames have paved a pretty steep road to get to the playoffs throughout their last ten games. They have 2 more games away in this road trip and if they don’t come back with a win, they will have sealed their fate. One thing we can look forward to is the trade deadline, even though most reports aren’t expecting any trade action this week, with the April 3rd trade deadline looming, hopefully Calgary has something up their sleeve.
Thanks for reading!
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