3 Things From Week 20: Johnny Gaudreau More Points, Dougie Hamilton Leads PP & Comings and Goings

The Flames finished up their 6 game road trip this past week with a record of 4-2-0 and started their brief home stand with a 6-3 loss. Calgary overall was 1-2-0 on the week, getting blown out by the Bruins and Panthers, but they were able to salvage one win, a 4-3 victory over Nashville.

As of Sunday morning the Flames are now out of a WC spot after their 6-3 loss to Florida Saturday night. Calgary did hold the 6th spot coming into that game, but the loss combined with an Anaheim win, dropped the Flames in the Western Conference standings. The Flames are 30-21-8 (68), which is good for 9th place in the West, 1 point behind the Ducks for the final WC spot.

Johnny Gaudreau Collects Points: It was another good week for the Flames top winger.

Johnny Gaudreau continued his strong play this week with a goal against the Bruins and an assist in the Flames win over the Nashville Predators. He was held without a point against Florida, which is only the 3rd time in the last 23 games he hasn’t collected a goal or an assist. He now has 68 points on the season (19G 49A) which is good for 4th in the league, 9 points behind Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov.

Power Plays Shows Life: All thanks to Dougie Hamilton.

The Flames special team were a mixed bag this week, which is better than usual. The Flames got themselves 4 PPG on 15 chances, which is a major accomplishment for that beleaguered unit. And one reason they are having success is Dougie Hamilton has FINALLY been added to the top PP line. Hamilton had 2 PPG against the Panthers and 1 PPG against Nashville. So, if you can do the math the Flames had 4 PPG this week, Hamilton had 3 of them. His 3 goals with the man advantage gave 5 for the season, putting him 4th on the Flames. He has 5 goals and 4 assists overall when playing man up. It’s too bad Glen Gulutzan didn’t put him on the top line earlier. Who knows what could have happened, but what we do know is it couldn’t have been worse.

Comings & Goings: 2 Players were called up this week, one player was placed on IR. Oh, and there was a minor contract extension.

The Flames brought 2 players up this week, signed one player and put a player on IR. That’s a lot for a 7 day period. Jon Gillies and Morgan Kilmchuk both got the call to the big club this week. Gillies is up due to Mike Smith being out day to day and is serving as David Rittich’s back up. In 31 games in Stockton Gillies has a 14-12-2-4 record with a GAA of 2.61 and .915 Save%. He saw some action in the Flames 6-3 loss to Florida, stopping 13 of the 15 shots he faced in mop up duty.

Morgan Klimchuk is getting a cup of coffee with the Flames due to Marek Hrivik being placed on IR. Klimchuk was having a solid season in Stockton with 27 points (13G 14A) in 44 games, good for 5th on the team. He was, however, a healthy scratch on Saturday night.

Marek Hrivik was placed on IR Saturday, but the Flames didn’t release any information regarding the injury. Hrivik saw limited time with Calgary this season, playing in only 3 games and seeing a little over 8 minutes in ice time while playing

BUT the big news was Calgary and Mikael Backlund signing a new contract on Friday night. Both parties settled on a very comfortable 6 year extension worth $32.1 million dollars. The in season signing was a smart move by both parties and now the Flames have their #2 and #1 centres locked up long term.

by Mark Parkinson