The Calgary Flames beat the Vegas Golden Knight 5-4 after a
shootout, but if you’ve been following the news, you know that is not the bigger news.
Despite the win, Calgary was eliminated from playoff
contention thanks to a win by St. Louis in their final game against Utah, and
Minnesota forcing overtime against Anaheim and getting one point to qualify for
the post-season.
But its only fair to critique this game, as the team put on a fight (and won) despite knowing in the second intermission they
had been knocked out of the playoff race.
Here are my three takeaways from the game:
1) A whole lot of scrappiness in the third despite bad news
For a team that had just realized they were no longer in the
running for the Stanley Cup, this Calgary bunch looked quite feisty. After entering
the third period down 3-1 with the man-advantage, Nazem Kadri scored 32 seconds
in, before Mikael Backlund put the puck back in the net after another 32
seconds, tying the game. This team may have not made it into the playoffs, but
they have a lot of fight in them.
2)
Special Teams
Calgary was 2-for-2 on the man-advantage. Now, this was a
welcome surprise to see. This was the first time the Flames had scored two power
play goals since their Feb 5 home game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
With their penalty kill being 2-for-2, they are now 19-for-20 (95%),
since March 26, the best in the league since then.
3)
Shot-blockers
In regulation, despite sitting out some of their top offensive
weapons, Vegas outshot Calgary 42-28. That put goalie Dustin Wolf in for a long
night, and that’s not even taking the overtime shootout into account.
But it would’ve been made worst had the Flames players not
blocked 19 of the Knights’ shots. Defenseman Joel Hanley came out on top with
four blocks. Fellow defenseman MacKenzie
Weegar and forward Blake Coleman had three each.
Calgary’s final regular season game will be against the Los
Angeles Kings on Thursday at 7:30 MT/9:30 ET.
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