Flames Fall Behind Early, Drop 5th Straight

Calgary Flames 2 – Colorado Avalanche 3

Complete Stats

Scoring

Calgary Flames

1st: None

2nd: 17:41- Ryan (4) (Lucic)

3rd: 15:44- Mangiapane (4) (Kylington/Monahan)

Colorado Avalanche

1st: 3:21- Burakovsky (9) (MacKinnon/Makar), 18:25- Burakovsky (10) (Donskoi/MacKinnon)

2nd: 13:15- Kamenev (1) (Compher/Nichushkin)

3rd: None

Recap

Sigh. Well, at least they scored. The Flames came home for a quick stop before hitting the road for four straight and dropped their 5th straight game, this time a 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

Calgary gave up the first goal of contest for the 8th straight game and despite that they looked like they had the energy advantage early on. The Flames played heavy in the first period, throwing some massive body checks that seemed to get the blood flowing for a team that desperately needed to show some life. The problem is hits don’t score goals. Goal scorers score goals and that’s just what the Avalanche did.

Colorado would open the scoring at the 3:21 mark of the first period when Andre Burakovsky would score the first of his two goals in this contest and it felt like the rout was on. Burakovsky would extend the Avalanche lead to 2-0 with his second of the contest and things were looking bleak for the Flames. Vladislav Kamenev would put the nail in the Flames coffin with his first of the season, giving the Avs a 3-0 lead.

It took 27:41, but the Flames would finally find the back of the net. Derek Ryan and his hard working line would reap the benefits of all their hard work. Milan Lucic would feed Ryan and he would snipe a pretty top shelf goal to get the Flames within two at 3-1. Andrew Mangiapane would put the second and final Flames goal in at the 15:44 mark of the third period, but that would be all for the Flames on Tuesday night. Calgary put on a solid push in the final two minutes, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Final Thoughts

Big name players come to play in big games and make their teammates better. That’s exactly what Colorado did tonight. Nathan MacKinnon had a two point night and was a driving force in getting Colorado a win. He hasn’t played with his usual line mates in Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen in ages (injuries), yet he’s propelling the players on his line to greatness.

The Flames best players? HA! Not even close. Instead of making their line mates better, Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan continue to toil along in mediocrity (at best) and be absolute no shows. Another game, another day with no goals for the two players who are supposed to lead this team. They should take a look towards the other bench to see how it is done.

The Flames best group of the night was the Derek Ryan/Milan Lucic/Dillon Dube line. Bill Peters rolled this line constantly as they were the only group out there playing anything that remotely looked like hockey. This line scored, had three hits and had 12 SOG. They were also three of the four Flames players on offence who were in the plus side of the +/- column. While this was great to see, it can’t be the norm. This line can’t be the best line every night or this team is in deeeeeeeeeeeep trouble.

Flame Of The Game

Michael Stone (D): Stone had a VERY solid game tonight, throwing some huge hits early on and playing a very good game on the blue line. Stone was second among Flames defencemen in ice time with 23:34, he blocked a shot and had 1 SOG.

What’s Next?

11/21: Calgary Flames @ St. Louis Blues 6 PM MT

by Mark Parkinson