NHL20 Playoffs Sim Round 4, Game 5: Flames advance to Stanley Cup Finals for first time since 2004

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our Youtube channel to get live updates and watch the live stream of our sim games

Calgary leads best of 7 series 3-1

Leaders:

Goals

COL: MacKinnon/Jost (8)

CGY: Monahan (12)

Assists

COL: Rantanen (10)

CGY: Andersson (13)

Points

COL: MacKinnon (15)

CGY: Monahan (22)

Goalies

COL: Grubauer (8-6-1) 3.21 GAA .910 Sv% 1 SO

CGY: Rittich (13-4-0) 2.94 GAA .926 Sv% 2 SO

Calgary Flames 6 – Colorado Avalanche 4

Scoring

Calgary Flames

1st: 3:44- Mangiapane (8) (Backlund [10], Gustafsson [9]), 5:27- Dube () (Lucic [5], Ryan [8]), 9:21- Lindholm (6) (Gaudreau [10])

2nd: 3:07- Mangiapane (9) (Gustafsson [10], Backlund [11])

3rd: 6:51- Czarnik (5) (Lucic [6], Jankowski [6]), 19:37 EN- Hamonic (3) (Bennett [7], Hanifin [7])

Colorado Avalanche

1st: 5:44- Bellemare (2) (Graves [5], Jost [6]), 18:23 SHG- Compher (7) (Cole [4], Graves [6])

2nd: None

3rd: 8:51- MacKinnon (8) (Johnson [7]), 19:05- Rantanen (4) (Namestnikov [10], Compher [2])

Recap

Well, we can breathe. After being up 5-2 midway through the third, the Flames gave up 2 goals to the Avalanche’s two superstars. Thankfully, it would be as close as Colorado would come to tying the game, as Calgary hung on to win the Clarence S. Campbell bowl.

The Flames came to play early, scoring 3 goals in the opening half of a period, compared to just a single Avalanche tally. Andrew Mangiapane opened the affair up with a backdoor pass from Mikael Backlund.

Dillon Dube continued his fantastic series, opening the lead up to 2 goals with a slapshot over Grubauer. After Pierre-Edouard Bellemare halved the lead just seconds later, Elias Lindholm scored his fourth of the series midway through the first.

JT Compher scored a shorthanded goal before intermission, to bring the game to 3-2. Mangiapane played a little out of position for his second of the game, as he ripped a slapshot from the blueline past Grubauer for the sole goal of the second period.

Austin Czarnik finished off some nifty passing from the Flames fourth line in the third, which at the time gave the Flames a healthy 5-2 lead. However, a goal from Nathan MacKinnon midway through the third, and then Mikko Rantanen with 55 seconds remaining cut the lead to just one.

David Rittich kept the remainder of the shots out, and Travis Hamonic added the empty netter to seal the win for the Flames. Calgary finishes the series with 30 goals through just 5 games, after being held to just 11 in last year’s 5 game series. The Flames will face the winner of the Bruins/Flyers, which either way will be a first time Cup matchup.

Flame of the Game

Andrew Mangiapane (F): A semi-quiet performance for Mangiapane so far through this series by his standards (4 assists in 4 games), but a 2 goal explosion in the most important game of the series shows Mang’s value. He sits tied for second on the Flames with 19 points through 18 games in the playoffs.

by Gordie Taylor