Flames Show Up with Too Little, Way Too Late in Loss

The Calgary Flames and Nashville Predators met for the first time this season at the Dome in a game that had massive playoff implications. The Flames led the Predators by 4 points in the standings entering the game but the Preds have 3 games in hand, so the swing from today’s game was huge.

The Flames have won five of the last six games against Nashville.

Sam Bennett was a surprising healthy scratch after having a tough stretch of games over the last 2-3 weeks. Micheal Ferland returned to the lineup after missing a couple games with injury to take his place.

Chad Johnson got the start for the Flames tonight.

1st Period

James Neal would get the Predators up 1-0 five minutes into the game by burying a rebound in the slot as a result of a turnover and poor defensive coverage by the Flames.

Calgary would get a powerplay later in the period after Nashville took a delay of game penalty for sending the puck out of play. During the first half of the man advantage, the Flames would get some shots, then Dougie Hamilton would be tripped to send Calgary to a five on three.

The Flames wouldn’t generate anything else on the PP’s as the whole setup looked disjointed.

The opening period ends with Nashville up 1-0 on the Flames and shots 14-9 for Calgary.

2nd Period

Nashville would get an early powerplay when Dougie Hamilton laid a big hit on a Predator and was called for interference which was questionable. The Flames would kill it off despite some maintained pressure from the Preds.

A few minutes later, Stajan would also be whistled for a questionable boarding call although I think this call was slightly more correct, and Nashville would have another powerplay. Calgary would kill this one too.

Nashville would make it 2-0 on a 2 on 1 with Ryan Ellis being left alone into the zone and beating Johnson on the glove side.

Calgary would then get a powerplay on an interference call as the Flames tried to get back in the game. And they’d do nothing.

Nashville would get another powerplay and score to make it 3-0 with Ryan Ellis getting his second goal of the period.

Second period ends with the Flames down 3-0 and frankly looking absolutely awful.

3rd Period

Nashville would get up 4-0 with another goal, this time from Filip Forsberg.

The Flames would get on the board with 3 and a half minutes to go with Versteeg scoring on the powerplay.

17 seconds later Frolik would make it 4-2 banging in a puck in front.

With 48 seconds to go Sean Monahan would bury a rebound and make it 4-3.

However that was as close as they would come as the Predators take the 4-3 victory and move into prime spot to catch the Flames in the wild card race.

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

Flames lose this one and will likely fall out of a playoff spot once teams with games in hand catch up. Onto Edmonton on Saturday where hopefully the good Flames show up.

by Michael MacGillivray