Ducks Score Late to Down Flames on Home Finale

The Calgary Flames closed out the home portion of the regular season on Sunday, falling 4-3 to the Anaheim Ducks. On the bright side, we’ll be back in the Dome in 7-10 days for playoff hockey!

1st Period

Anaheim would open up a 1-0 lead on the powerplay halfway through the period when Patrick Eaves would continue his career season, beating Elliott on a rebound. There was some poor netfront coverage by the Flames and they paid the price.

The Ducks would then make it 2-0 late in the period with Jakob Silfverberg putting a perfect shot into the top corner.

It was a decent period for the Flames but periods of lackluster play doomed them as they went to the intermission down 2-0 and being outshot 10-9.

2nd Period

Calgary would get back to within one on the PP when Kris Versteeg put an absolutely perfect wrist shot past Jonathan Bernier, leaving him absolutely stunned.

On another powerplay later in the period, Versteeg would once again score, sliding a puck through Bernier after stepping out from the corner.

The goals were Versteeg’s 14th and 15th of the season, not bad for a post training camp walk-on for $950k.

We’d get a ton of amazing saves by Brian Elliott, followed by a very spirited fight between Michael Ferland and Nate Thompson.

Anaheim would retake the lead late in the period after an absolutely horrendous decision by Matt Bartkowski to just slap the puck up the boards. Ryan Getzlaf would stop the puck and eventually find Korbinian Holzer who would beat Elliott to make it 3-2.

3rd Period

So we kind of called out the 3M line during the intermission tonight

They’d immediately shut us up as Michael Frolik would deflect a Mark Giordano pass through Bernier to tie the game at three apiece.

The Ducks would take it to the Flames for most of the period but Calgary would hold the fort until late.

Bartkowski would whiff on a shot, and then the Ducks would beat the Flames back into the defensive zone and Logan Shaw would be left alone in front to deposit a rebound into the net.

Down 4-3, the Flames would pull the goalie but not even get any good scoring chances as the Ducks would get the victory.

The Good

1. I thought the Versteeg-Bennett-Chiasson line had a solid night and is a great third line
2. Brian Elliott made some amazing saves and definitely didn’t deserve the four spot that the Ducks put up
3. We got a good taste of playoff hockey as the refs let a lot of things go, especially in the third

The Bad

1. Michael Ferland fighting a fourth liner is something that we probably don’t need now that he’s in the top three
2. The third pairing had a lot of defensive miscues that cost the Flames

The Ugly

1. The third pairing
2. Corey Perry in general

The Flames have now been mathematically eliminated from winning the division, and an Edmonton win would eliminate the possibility of home ice in the first round. The Flames sit three points behind San Jose for third in the division.

Calgary will now head to California to close out the season, starting with a trip to their personal house of horrors in the Honda Center. Here’s a theory of what the Flames can do:

Remember we’ll be opening up our gamethread on Tuesday night and I’ll be in there, so please feel free to sign up and drop by and we can all talk during the game! It’ll be a lot of fun!

Go Flames Go!