Flames Drop Third Straight With 3-2 Loss To Nashville

Calgary Flames 2 – Nashville Predators 3

Complete Stats

Scoring

Calgary Flames

1st: 00:33- Bennett (5) (Hamonic/Brodie)

2nd: 11:06- Andersson (4) (Tkachuk/Lindholm)

3rd: None

Nashville Predators

1st: 1:49- Fabbro (5) (Josi/Granlund), 11:43- Turris (7) (Ekholm/Forsberg)

2nd: PPG 9:06- Granlund (12) (Josi/Turris)

3rd: None

Recap

Well, there weren’t the dramatics of the last meeting of these two as Nashville dispatched the Flames 3-2 to end the Flames three game home stand. The Flames have now dropped three in a row and five out of their last six. This was a tough one to swallow as Calgary gave up two points to the team that is right behind them in the Wild Card race in the Western Conference.

Someone on Twitter today suggested that the Flames could really use a two goal lead. Calgary couldn’t hold their only lead tonight when it was 1-0. Calgary wasted little time lighting the lamp as Sam Bennett would connect on his 5th of the season and Calgary would take a VERY early 1-0 lead. Like all things nice, Calgary wasn’t allowed to have this lead long. Nashville would even the score 1:16 later and Nashville would slowly start to take this game over.

The Preds would score one more time before the end of the first and add the game winner nine minutes into the second period and that would be all she wrote as Nasvhille would pull within one point of the Flames in the WC race and win their second straight.

Final Thoughts

This wasn’t a terrible overall showing by the Flames, but it wasn’t a complete game either. It took the Flames almost 10 minutes into the third period to put a shot on goal and then once they got that shot, their game improved. With that said, nine shots in a period isn’t going to get it done.

You also have to give credit where credit is due: Nashville played a very solid defensive game. The Predators blocked 25 shots on the night, so getting pucks to the net was not very easy. Juuse Saros was solid in net for Nashville as he stopped 37 of the 39 shots that made it past his team in front of him.

You’d have to think that if 3-4 of those shots make it past the defence, then maybe the Flames could have tied it up at one point. The problem for the Flames was they jumped on Nashville immediately by scoring first, but then let Nashville take back all that momentum with a goal right after Calgary took the lead AND by letting them score for a second time in the opening period. Without a doubt another uninspiring performance by an underachieving Flames team.

Flame Of The Game

Sam Bennett (C): Bennett scored the Flames first goal and looked engaged from the start. He had two SOG and three hits to go along with his goal and when that’s the best you can say about the team, that’s not good. But good on Bennett for showing up.

What’s Next?

2/8: Calgary Flames @ Vancouver Canucks, 8 PM MT

by Mark Parkinson