Flames & David Rittich Hold On For 3-1 Victory Over Flyers

Calgary Flames 3 – Philadelphia Flyers 1

Complete Stats

Scoring

Flames:

1st: 1:35- Frolik (1) (Unassisted)

2nd: 14:15- Mangiapane (1) (Giordano/Ryan)

3rd: 19:50: Lindholm (Empty Net) (4) (Unassisted)

Flyers:

1st: None

2nd: None

3rd: 4:58- Niskanen (1) (Konecny)

Recap

Calgary came home from a rough road trip and faced off against a well rested team from Philadelphia and were able to snap a two game losing skid with a 3-1 victory Tuesday night.

Calgary has had a rough go about it in the early periods of games this season, but that trend was put to bed when Michael Frolik would light the lamp first for the Flames. Playing in his 800th career game, Frolik would end a Flames first period scoring drought with his first of the season and Calgary quickly jumped out to a 1-0 lead.

The Flames would carry that 1-0 lead into the second period and add to it late in the second frame. Some hard work by Derek Ryan along the boards would free up a puck to Mark Giordano who fed Andrew Mangiapane for his first goal of the season, deflected off a Flyers stick, and Calgary would have a 2-0 lead that they wouldn't surrender.

While they were able to hang on, the Flames didn’t make it easy on themselves. The Flyers pushed back hard in the third period, firing only six shots on net, but they were all dangerous. One of those six would find the back of the net at the 4:58 mark when Matt Niskanen would fire home his first of the season and Philly’s first of the game and all of a sudden we were in a one goal game.

Calgary would play some very solid defence in the final minutes of this contest, blocking multiple shots and an Elias Lindholm empty net goal with 10 seconds left would seal the deal for the Flames.

Final Thoughts

Calgary got another solid performance from David Rittich, despite not being tested for most of this game. Through two periods the Flames netminder had only seen 16 shots, but he was solid nonetheless.

Speaking of solid, how about former Flames netminder Brian Elliott? Elliott looked like the goalie Calgary thought they were getting as he stopped 36 of the 38 shots that came his way in an outstanding performance.

The Flames are walking a dangerous line when it comes to taking penalties as their PK unit is getting overworked. Calgary took four more penalties tonight, none of them smart, but their man down personnel was able to kill off all 4 Philadelphia PP’s.

All in all this was a solid performance for the Flames tonight. They got a ton of pucks to the net, blocked a good amount of shots and cut down on their turnovers as well. The win snaps an ugly two game losing streak for the Flames and their secondary scoring was on point tonight.

Flame Of The Game

Travis Hamonic. Hammer had 3 key blocks final 2 minutes, two of them on shots and the other to break up a pass that would have led to a scoring chance for the Flyers. He finished the night with four blocks overall, which was tops on the Flames.

What’s Next?

10/17: Calgary Flames vs Detroit Red Wings, 7 PM MT

by Mark Parkinson