The Morning After

Calgary Flames 3 - Boston Bruins 4

NHL Standings

Well, I’m sure that’s not how the Flames drew it up. Calgary roared out to a 3-1 lead over the Boston Bruins last night, but as quickly as they got that lead the Bruins took it away and walked out of Calgary with a 4-3 victory.

This one looked like a runaway for the Flames as Mikael Backlund scored twice in the first period and Johnny Gaudreau added his 15th of the season to get the Flames going, but the Bruins showed everyone why they are the best team in the league. By the end of the opening period Boston had tied the game at 3-3 on goals by Patrice Bergeron (2) and Charlie Coyle (1) and from there on out it was all Bruins. Brad Marchand would round out the scoring for the B’s with his 24th of the season, making the final score 4-3.

Blowing the lead was bad enough, but the Flames just became inept after the first period. And not just the first, but after the 3:23 mark when they scored their final goal of the contest. Calgary at one point had three goals on six shots, but then the well went completely dry. They finished the first period with six SOG. They had five SOG in the second period. Yes, you read that correctly. And let’s not make this out to be that Bruins were super human throwing shots on net either. They mirrored Calgary’s bad night shooting as well. They just finished off the game with only 11 SOG in the final two periods. What Boston did MUCH better than the Flames was block shots. The Bruins finished the night with 19 blocks, compared to Calgary’s nine and that really helped make the difference seeing the Flames couldn’t get the puck to Jaroslav Halak who was shaky from the get go.

Tidbits

-Holy Goals: The Flames set a franchise record last night by scoring the three fastest goals in Flames history. It only took Mikael Backlund (2) and Johnny Gaudreau (1) 3:23 to score three goals against the Bruins.

-Speaking Of Backlund: Mikael Backlund might be the hottest Flames player right now. Backlund’s two goals last night upped him to five goals in his last five games and he has a point in nine of thirteen.

-Not Speaking Of: Sean Monahan. It was another tough night for the Flames “top” centre. Monahan was non-existent last night with a “0” across the scoreboard to show for his efforts. He’s currently riding a streak of futility where he has 8 points (5 goals) in his last 20 games.

Highlights

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