A listless Flames team falls to Arizona 4-1.

Calgary came into Gila River Arena on the heels of a shoot out win over the San Jose Sharks and you could tell. The Flames looked sluggish in the first and who could blame them. Fox Sports Southwest was reporting the Flames didn’t get into their hotel until 2:30am Friday morning. All that aside, the Flames have won 3 straight and the Yotes have dropped 5 straight and are falling faster than an anvil dropped by the Road runner.

Shane Doan opened the scoring by sliding a puck underneath Jonas Hiller’s pads. Not a pretty goal by any stretch, but a goal is a goal and it put the Coyotes up 1-0 over the Flames. In scoring that goal, Doan ties Dale Hawerchuk with 929 career points with Arizona. The Flames on the other hand, spent some ample time in the box. To be fair, both teams did, but Calgary is living dangerously if they plan on riding the penalty kill tonight. The Flames only good chance of the period came off a rebound, but TJ Brodie missed an open net that a hippo could have fit in. Calgary picked up a late Power Play at the end of the period.

Calgary had a Power Play to start the 2nd and the Flames gave up an apparent shorty 30 seconds in. But the Flames got lucky as the replay review showed the puck hit the cross bar and never crossed the line, so no goal. Hiller extremely lucky on that one. Calgary next drew 2 penalties, one a bad retaliatory penalty on Johnny Gaudreau, giving Arizona a 5 on 3, and the Coyotes made the Flames pay. Hiller gave one up to Ekman-Larsson making the score 2-0. It didn’t get any better from there. More sloppy play, penalties and fat rebounds had Arizona swarming and Duclair put one past Hiller to make it 3-0 at the end of the 2nd period.

The first half of the 3rd was an absolute snoozer. Sam Bennett tried to get something going by starting a fight, but nothing came of it. It was Bennett’s next shift that he made an impact……and not in a good way. #93 drew an ugly 2 minute boarding penalty and was lucky it was only 2. Calgary finally got on the board when TJ Brodie took the puck to the net and Joe Colborne collected the crumbs to get the Flames their first goal of the game. And not to be outdone in this penalty fest, Stone mashed Stajan head first into the boards and collected a 2:00 roughing penalty. Stajan left for the locker room after having a chat with Stone on his way to the box. Late in the 3rd Calgary picked up 2 penalties and left themselves in another 5 on 3 and Shane Doan made them pay by scoring his 2nd goal of the game putting the nail in the Flames coffin by making it 4-1.

Calgary hurt themselves tonight with bad penalties, turnovers, poor goal tending and being slow out of the gate. The Flame's 3 game win streak is done and they gave back the two valuable points they earned in San Jose on Thursday night. The Flames next play Monday night at home against Anaheim.

Flame of The Game:

This was a tough one because no one really deserved it, but it'll go to Josh Jooris. He played hard tonight and got in a few scrums and really was the only Flame for most of the game who showed a pulse.

by Mark Parkinson