We just witnessed the best game of the season.
Last night’s 5-4 overtime victory over the Nashville Predators had everything.
Goal of the season.
Hit of the season.
Comeback of the- you get my point.
It was such an intense physical matchup that you may have wondered whether you had slept a week and playoffs had already started.
While watching this game one had to wonder:
Would a series between these two teams be a good thing for either? If they grind this hard, what hope do they have against whoever emerges from the now-confirmed LA/Edmonton series?
Then again, one has to remember that the Oilers only need one or two of their oft-injured players (RNH, Smith, Puljujarvi, Nurse) to go down for the team to start falling apart at the seams. How many games like last night’s Predators/Flames war could that roster handle?
While it’s fun to talk about a Flames/Predators first round, it’s still very much in the air who the Flames will play. Let’s take a look at today’s wildcard standings.
Nashville currently holds the tiebreaker. 41 regulation plus overtime wins to Dallas’ 40.
What happens over the next two games could have major implications. So let’s talk about the most significant event in last night’s game.
Saros Injured With 6:32 remaining in the third period, Predators starter Jusse Saros made his way to the bench favouring his left ankle. Down the tunnel he went and in goes former Flame David Rittich.
A comparison of the two courtesy of nhl.com.
Unfortunately for Dave, Tkachuk ended up scoring to tie the game with around .1 second left on the clock.
What hurts even more is that he did something similar on Sunday. With 1.7 seconds remaining in overtime, defenseman Dmitri Kulikov scored a breakaway goal to secure the extra point.
It’s tough to say whether Rittich’s issues are physical or mental. We’ve seen both ends of the spectrum in his game. The goalie that can steal a game from any team in the league— and the goalie that can lose the game on any given shot.
These two overtime losses may very well be David Rittich’s “all is lost… moment. If his problems are merely between the ears then Calgary (or Colorado) has a sleeping giant to worry about.
Not to toot my own horn, but this all was more or less prophesied last week by yours truly.
Should the two teams meet in first round action, the question then becomes:
Can the Calgary Flames deny the prophecy?
Ground War We haven’t seen another Flames game get even close to the level of physicality shown last night.
It would be nice to have better stats on hitting. Knocked off of skates, separated from the puck, momentum halted, shooting percentage of recipient before/after hit, etc.
What Milan Lucic did to Matt Duchene last night would fall into the “soul crushing… category. That was as hard as any Dion Phaneuf highlight or Robyn Regehr Tunnel of Death.
This wasn’t the only big hit, but certainly it was the biggest of the big hits.
Here’s what Lucic had to say of the game via Wes Gilbertson. @WesGilbertson
Playoff Chucky You had to be excited seeing Matthew Tkachuk stirring it up last night. The 102 point winger drew a whopping four penalties. Eight penalty minutes. That includes two unsportsmanlike minors.
Even more was that Matthew was chirping the Nashville bench every few shifts. Laughing at penalties, trying to fight Duchene— he’s been holding this back for some time. Prepare for fanbases around the continent to start decrying his very existence. Own it. Let their salty rage tears fuel your hubris.
On the Game We could go into how the Flames generally out-chanced the Predators 75-46 or that the Flames dominated the third with a 65.96CF%, but are you really getting a sense of what happened?
Both teams clogged the blue line as if playoffs had already begun. Nashville in particular did a great job at keeping shots from the slot to a minimum. This shot chart via naturalstattrick certainly backs that up.
Solving Forsberg Given that 12 minor penalties were assessed, it should be no surprise that the powerplay served up several significant turning points in the game. In fact, Nashville took two leads in the third due to powerplay goals scored by triggerman Filip Forsberg. Both cross-seam one-timers.
Here are the locations of both Forsberg goals.
Back when Flames Associate Coach Kirk Muller was working for the Montreal Canadiens organization, he was recognized as “solving… the Ovechkin problem during the playoffs by simply sticking a winger to the future Hall of Famer during the powerplay. The other three players played a triangle.
One has to imagine Muller is suggesting a similar solution to Forsberg.
The Flames are in Minnesota tomorrow to play the Wild. Both teams are 8-1-1 in their last ten. Stop in for a game day preview.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via naturalstattrick.com and nhl.com.