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Another Hot Goalie Douses Flames

October 19, 2021, 3:41 PM ET [23 Comments]
Trevor Neufeld
Calgary Flames Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It was a bitter pill to swallow last night as the Calgary Flames outshot the Ducks 43-27 and scored 11-5 in high danger opportunities on route to a 3-2 loss in overtime. While all the ingredients for a dominant team are present — the result just hasn’t gone their way. In what was a magnificent team effort, their inability to finish on the chances they earned as well as a few individual mistakes costed them the extra point.

Gibson was first star
The 28 year old Pittsburgh native completely stole this game. Bob Murray needs to get him off the roster if he wants any hope of a top 3 pick. He posted a .953 save percentage and went 6/6 on the Flames’ absolutely dominant powerplay. If it takes a >.950 save percentage to beat the Flames, then Calgary is easily in a playoff spot at the end of the regular season.

Something new
Matthew Tkachuk’s interference penalty at 14:03, whether it was intended or not, actually worked out pretty well for the Flames. Backlund was in line to receive a delay of game penalty by shooting the puck over the glass of the Flames bench. Instead, Tkachuk flew a kite with his stick and managed to bat it down. Now Tkachuk goes to the box instead of Backlund and the Flames get one of their better penalty killers on the ice after a short rest. It didn’t look like Tkachuk planned that based on the feedback he was giving the refs, but it’s still interesting to see.


Something old
In the early years of this era of Flames hockey we saw a lot of games the Flames deserved to win, but lost in a heart breaking fashion. Getting back to their roots is a good sign. 90 shots over two games is a good sign too.


Line & Player Notes:


Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk
This line was absolutely dominant. While the advanced stats point to the second line as the offensively dominant line, Sutter’s usage of the first line tells a different story. When the Flames needed the puck moved up the ice, the first line was brought out. 9/11 of their faceoffs were outside the offensive zone.

This is an issue I have with some advanced stats analysts. We’re now going to look at the numbers the second line posted in terms of chances and it needs to be noted that the first and third line did the majority of the heavy lifting in terms of killing the Ducks’ offensive swings. So, while you can say “Line two out-chanced the opponents 4-0 in high danger chances at 5v5” or “Line two were 10-1 in scoring chances at 5v5” — there is more going on to add context. For example, earning those offensive zone starts for other lines and wearing down the opposition’s better defenders.

Dube-Monahan-Mangiapane
Sutter used this line primarily in an offensive role and they showed well in that regard. Defensively — not so much. They were on for both regulation goals against. Mangiapane whiffed on a hit and took himself completely out of the play and Dube missed his coverage in the second Ducks goal. Dube missed his coverage on Fowler’s powerplay goal as well. He gave Fowler all the time in the world to pick a spot to shoot at when he got caught low.

That said, you can note the statistics mentioned above and if you just looked at the advanced stats, you would think this line was absolutely dominant. Which they were — offensively at least.

Lucic-Backlund-Coleman
This newly formed checking line looked like a fit. They led the team in defensive zone starts and weren’t scored against. Hard to complain. Coleman made a case for playing higher in the lineup when he got a few seconds with the first line due to a line change and made the most of it. He handled a breakaway pass from Gaudreau and put the Flames up 1-0.

Ritchie-Gawdin-Lewis
This line looks promising as a fourth line. They took 3/5 of their faceoffs in the defensive zone and got four shots through to the net. Most importantly they weren’t scored on. Gawdin was an ugly 29% in the dot.

Hanifin-Andersson
Hanifin had a nasty giveaway that led to the Ducks ending the game in overtime. Aside from that, this pairing did what you hope they would do — handled the Ducks top players for the majority of the game.

Zadorov-Tanev
The Ducks seemingly didn’t have the firepower to pressure this pairing into a big Zadorov mistake. Zadorov made a pretty dumb no-look pass out front to Getzlaf, but that was about it.
We could go into how they outchanced the opposition etc, but that also applies to every pairing last night mostly due to the work the forwards put in.

Valimaki-Gudbranson
Much like Zadorov-Tanev, we can go into how this pairing outchanced the opposition vastly (22-9 in chances on average between the two), but that’s more of an indicator of how their forwards played. This pairing wasn’t challenged much in their own end. Gudbranson was on for the powerplay goal against, but was in position. Valimaki looked a little better compared to his game against the Oilers, but was still quite unremarkable. He did get three shots on net though.

Markstrom
You have to feel bad for Jacob Markstrom. He played well once again. The instances he was scored on were very high danger shots. It’s tough to make huge saves when you’re not having a busy night as a goalie.



The Calgary Flames play next on Thursday against the Detroit Red Wings at 5:30 Calgary time.



Cheer up. It’s still warm out,



Trevor Neufeld



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