Calgary Flames 3 St. Louis Blues 5

Complete Stats

Recap

Well, they were’t going to win 81 this season, so might as well get loss #2 out of the way. Calgary came into St. Louis riding a modest two game winning streak, but left the Gateway To The West 5-3 losers at the hands of the Blues. The Flames opened the scoring on James Neal’s first goal with the Flames, but the Blues quickly sent the Flames packing thanks to David Perron’s 3 goal outburst.

You knew things weren’t going to go well for Calgary, when despite the outstanding play of Mike Smith early on the Flames were down 3-1 on the scoreboard at the end of the first. Sean Monahan summed up the Flames night perfectly when he froze Jake Allen on a penalty shot......but hit the post. That was the Flames night in a nutshell. Mark Giordano rang one off the post as well on a beautiful scoring opportunity and Johnny Gaudreau was tripped up by the blue line as he was chasing down a puck that could have lead to a breakaway.

At the other end of the ice Jake Allen shut the Flames down, stopping 31 of the 34 shots that came his way, getting his first victory of the season. And if you want to be REALLY picky Calgary’s 3rd goal came of the foot of Allen’s teammate Alex Pietrangelo, so his night could have been that much better.

Calgary just didn’t seem to be able to match St. Louis’ speed and part of that may have been from the fact that Calgary played on Tuesday and the Blues hadn’t played since Sunday. Either way Juuso Valimaki and Rasmus Andersson were exposed by the Blues veterans and Mike Smith got caught out in no mans land playing a puck that lead to a St. Louis goal. That goal might be the only complaint in regards to Smith. He didn’t play poorly, but the team in front of him did.

Calgary’s red hot PP was put on ice tonight, with the Blues killing all 4 penalties they took, including a 5 on 3 where the Flames mustered, well, nothing. To the Blues credit they pumped in 2 PPG, giving them 4 in their last 2 contests.

Calgary tried to roar back late in the 3rd, but Derek Ryan and Mikael Backlund’s goals weren’t enough as Jake Allen made 2 huge stops that kept the Flames off the board, getting St. Louis their first win of the season.

Scoring

Calgary Flames

1st Period: Neal (1) (Bennett/Dube)

2nd Period: None

3rd Period: Ryan (1) (Czarnik/Tkachuk), Backlund (1) (Giordano/Lindholm)

St. Louis Blues

1st Period: Steen (1) (Bouwmeester/Kyrou), Perron (1) (Schenn), Edmundson (1) (Barbashev/Thomas)

2nd Period: Perron (2) (Schenn/Steen), Perron (3) (Schenn/Schwartz)

3rd Period: None

Final Thoughts

St. Louis played harder, faster and got a few timely saves and those were some of the big differences that sank the Flames tonight. The PP struggled mightily for the good guys and Calgary let a goalie that had struggled in his first 2 starts shut them down for most of the night (where have we seen that before?). The Flames top line was nonexistent in this contest producing 6 shots on net, but James Neal was able to get his first goal as a Flame with that unit. While those stats don’t look terrible, if you watched the game you could see that line really struggling. Someone not struggling is Austin Czarnik. Czarnik collected an assist on Derek Ryan’s goal, his second of the season and he continues to get quality shifts and his game keeps getting better.

Flame Of The Game

Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

James Neal (F). Neal got his first goal as a member of the Calgary Flames and spent most of his night on the top line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. Neal was the bright spot of the trio which struggled to gain traction against the Blues in the 5-3 loss.

What’s Next?

10/13: Calgary Flames @ Colorado Avalanche, 8 PM MT