To those that follow the Flames, it’s probably not necessary to point out that the team has had issues beating the Dallas Stars.
Following a 2-0 victory in game 3 of the first round on August 14, 2020, the Flames have dropped four straight to the Stars. It seemed to click within the Dallas roster that if they used their size to keep the Flames to the perimeter; there wasn’t much that Calgary could do to get the puck past one of the carousel of goalies that Dallas has hosted.
With five minutes remaining in the third period last night, in the face of another Stars death throttle— the Flames once again proved that this is the season of bucking trends.
Two goals thirty seven seconds apart. Killing off a penalty against the 5th best powerplay(at the time) in the NHL. The game winner off the stick of the penalized Oliver Kylington.
That was vintage 2015 Flames heart attack hockey.
Ruzicka acclimatizing It was great to see the 22 year old Slovak building on his confidence with the puck. He made a sublime pass to Trevor Lewis to get Calgary on the board at the 1:54 mark of the first period. He doesn’t seem to panic with the puck as much as he was in early January.
He set a career high in time on ice yesterday with 11:34 and came out of the game +1. His previous record was 10:53 against Carolina on January 7th in a -1 effort. He played 3:25 more than he did in the game against the Canucks(8:09). Tied with Ruzicka at 11:34 in ice time was Sean Monahan.
Adam out-chanced the opposition 15-5 while on the ice last night. Good for a 75CF%. All signs point towards an increased role.
A dominant third It was clear that the Stars intended on collapsing to the net in order to hold on to the 3-1 lead for the final 20 minutes. With Jacob Markstrom swapped out for Daniel Vladar, the Stars only recorded 5 shots on the Czech netminder.
In the final stanza, the Flames posted an 81.48CF% at 5v5. 27-6 in shot attempts. 5-0 in high danger chances. While Dallas plays a hard trap and counter style, 18.18CF% is a season low for the team over a single period. They head into the break on a sour note.
Assistant Coach Kirk Muller later clarified that the goalie swap was executed in an attempt to spark the lineup.
Coyotes Next up are the 11-29-4 Arizona Coyotes.
While it would not be unreasonable to expect a win against the NHL’s second worst team— a team seemingly intent on tanking the season from an asset management perspective; let’s just put a few things out there.
The Coyotes beat the best team in the NHL last night With a winning percentage of .773, the Colorado Avalanche are on pace to lead the league in points once all teams are caught up to the same amount of games played.
Yet this is the second time this season that the Arizona Coyotes have taken the Avalanche to overtime. This time they earned the extra point off an Alex Galchenyuk shootout goal. A big night for the Milwaukee native with Russian heritage. He scored his first goal of the season at the 12:54 mark of the second period.
Seemingly having the Avalanche’s number aside, the Coyotes are objectively bad compared to their NHL counterparts. Here is a tale of the tape courtesy of NHL.com.
Worst power play, second worst penalty kill, worst offence, third worst defence.
In the words of the titular coyote: woof.
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman Dube-Monahan-Ritchie Lucic-Ruzicka-Lewis
Hanifin-Andersson Kylington-Tanev Zadorov-Gudbranson
Vladar
Gut check time Both teams are finishing out back-to-backs, both teams are going into the All Star break after this game. Beating the Avalanche is likely a season high for the Coyotes in terms of confidence. The Flames also are coming off a massive coup after storming back against a team that has had their number of late.
This may actually be a pretty fun game to watch.
A chance to experiment The quality of competition tonight certainly provides an opportunity for head coach Darryl Sutter to try out some different line configurations.
The “third… line of Dube-Monahan-Ritchie doesn’t seem to be a fit. They were held goalless last night and were on for a goal against. How about a bottom six change-up:
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman Lucic-Ruzicka-Dube Lewis-Monahan-Ritchie
Or try out the hot hand in Mikael Backlund with some players needing a jump-start:
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Mangiapane-Ruzicka-Coleman Dube-Backlund-Lucic Lewis-Monahan-Ritchie
Fun to think about.
Trevor Neufeld