Flames

Kings 3, Flames 0: Five observations from a wasted opportunity

Mar 26, 2019 • 8:26 am

Five observations from Calgary vs Los Angeles:

1. The Flames underwhelmed I'm not going to sit here and tell you the Flames got what they deserved. That would be harsh. They generated a lot of shots, were strong defensively, and controlled the run of play for much of the night. They were clearly the better team. In saying that, I don't think the game was as one-sided as the shot clock suggests. To me, it felt a lot like when a top tier soccer team takes on a side at the bottom of the table and dominates possession but just can't find a way to break through. Again, the Flames did muster up a lot of shots. Not a ton of truly dangerous ones, though. They registered 10 high-danger chances, which is not a lot for a home date against a bad team – especially considering the Flames had four full power plays to work. There wasn't much wrong with their performance in a vacuum. They just didn't break down the Kings as often as one would expect, and that left them vulnerable to an upset.

2. The power play sucked Calgary spent eight minutes on the man advantage, the most time they've had in a single game since *checks notes* February 7th against San Jose. Better yet, they had eight minutes of power play time against a team that ranks 29th in PK goals against/60. What did the Flames do with those eight minutes? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. They mustered up two Grade A chances while conceding one of their own and they didn't score. I don't know about you, but personally I think teams should finish better than +1 in Grade A chance differential over four full power plays. Maybe it's just me. The Flames have now failed to score on the man advantage in five consecutive games and they've looked very sloppy in the process. Not a great time to be slumping, boys!

3. Sean Monahan looks ruined We haven't heard anything about a potential injury, which is not exactly surprising given the time of the year, but Monahan really looks hurt. There's no other explanation for his play. His possession numbers have dipped, his chance generation numbers have dipped, and he looks like a shell of himself. He can barely accept a pass, he's doing little stickhandling, and there isn't much zip on his shot. Maybe I'm imagining things but it looks like he's keeping his hands towards the top of his stick and putting very little weight/power on it, which could help explain why every pass he tries to accept gets away from him. The guy had 600 surgeries a summer ago and has taken on a massive workload this season. If his hands are wearing down, or he's in pain, he really needs to sit out for a few games and get some rest. He's not helping much right now and the Flames have all but locked up top spot in the division. There is little benefit to trotting him out there on the top line every night and, if something is wrong, the Flames are at risk of making things worse. They need to do whatever they can to make sure he's good to go for early-mid April because the Flames probably can't go on an extended run with him at this level.

4. The top pairing rolled They've hit some rocky patches of late but their performance against the Kings was anything but. At 5v5, the Flames out-attempted the Kings 19-2 (90.48 CF%) and out-chanced them 7-1 (87.50 SCF%) with Mark Giordano and T.J. Brodie on the ice. Somehow – somehow! – the Kings out-scored the Flames 1-0 in that time. I know the objective is to out-score the opposition, and Calgary failed to do that with the top pairing out there, but I'll take that kind of effort 100 times over – especially considering they spent more time against Anze Kopitar's line than any other.

5. Matthew Tkachuk vs Drew Doughty disappointed Even though Doughty shared the ice with Kopitar for more than six minutes at 5v5, and Tkachuk's line generally matched against Kopitar, Tkachuk and Doughty somehow only went head-to-head for a little over a minute during that game state, and ~3:30 overall. There weren't really many encounters between the two but they did bless us with one pretty heated exchange.