Calgary Flames 7 - Arizona Coyotes 1

Complete Stats

Recap

Well, that was certainly something. If this was a boxing match, the ref’s would have called the fight midway through the second period. The Flames extended their winning streak to five games with a 7-1 throttling of the Arizona Coyotes Sunday night. The Flames have now outscored the Coyotes 13-2 in their two meetings so far this season and this one was a runaway for the Flames.

Neither team played well for the first 10 minutes or so of this game. It was so bad that at one point Arizona still didn’t have a shot on goal. For all the talk from the Flames about needing to get off to a quick start they didn’t. Calgary stumbled through the first half of the first period until Mark Giordano put the Flames on the board. The Flames captain would get Calgary’s first goal of the night in his 800th NHL game and from that point on the Flames never looked back.

When you score 7 goals you don’t necessarily think of your goaltender being a huge part of the game, but Mike Smith was. He stopped 22 of the 23 shots he faced, including 11 of 12 in the second period. This game could have gone completely sideways, but Smith made some fantastic stops in this game and allowed the Flames offence to find it’s groove, while rolling over BC native Adin Hill to the tune of seven goals allowed on 26 shots.

Calgary would get a point from every line tonight as they spread the wealth in this dominating performance. The Flames top line would pick up 5 points, the 3M Line would collect 6 points (Matthew Tkachuk had 2 goals), the 3rd line of Bennett/Neal/Jankowski would get 2 points and the Hathaway/Ryan/Mangiapane crew had 2 points as well. And this isn’t counting Mark Giordano and T.J. Brodie’s combined 5 points (+5) on the night.

Scoring

Calgary

1st: 16:51- Giordano (8) (Ryan/Mangiapane), 17:59- Monahan (25) (Gaudreau/Giordano)

2nd: 1:36- Tkachuk (22) (Backlund/Frolik), 17:20- Gaudreau (27) (Monahan/Frolik)

3rd: 4:20- Tkachuk (23) (Backlund/Brodie), 6:16- Giordano (Brodie/Lindholm), 7:14- Bennett (7) (Neal)

Arizona

1st: None

2nd: 19:44- (PPG) Oesterle (4) (Goligoski/Stepan)

3rd: None

Final Thoughts

The Flames needed a performance like this to right the ship and that sounds odd seeing this is the club’s 5th straight victory. But the Flames haven’t exactly played well during this five game stretch. They’ve been lucky and sometimes that’s just part of the equation. Tonight was different as Calgary got on the board first and Arizona didn’t beat Mike Smith until the Flames had a 4-0 lead. The Flames kept pouring it on all night long and even with less than two minutes to go in the third period Calgary was playing like they were looking for the game tying goal while up 7-1.

Flame Of The Game

Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports

Mark Giordano (D): The Flames captain opened the flood gates with his first period goal and his second marker of the contest was an absolute rocket which made the score 6-1. Giordano also had an assist on Sean Monahan’s 25th goal of the season, which was Gio’s 35th helper of the year. Not bad for an aging, 35 year old defenceman.