After heating up during a season-long seven-game homestand at Scotiabank Saddledome, the Calgary Flames were cooled off in the opener of a season-long six-game road trip, falling 8-2 to the Detroit Red Wings in a penalty-filled affair at Little Caesars Arena.
1. LOPSIDED BUT MISLEADING LOSS
The Flames weren’t good on Wednesday night, but they weren’t 8-2 bad. Glen Gulutzan’s group couldn’t seem to get a bounce or catch a break, but that was only a small part of the problem. The Flames didn’t get enough bounces, saves or kills. Keep reading.
2. LACK OF SAVES
With Mike Smith on the shelf with an upper-body injury (he is scheduled to join the team in Philadelphia and could play in Saturday’s matinee matchup with the Flyers), Eddie Lack started for just the second time this season. Lack didn’t give up any horrible goals, but he also didn’t make enough saves, surrendering five goals on 15 shots before being pulled.
His replacement, Jon Gillies, who was recalled from the AHL’s Stockton Heat on Wednesday morning, wasn’t any better (or worse, really), giving up three goals on 12 shots in his first NHL game of the season and the second of his career. While I don’t think goaltending cost the Flames the game, Lack, and to a lesser extent Gillies, didn’t make the timely saves that Smith has been making almost all season long.
3. NOT-SO-SPECIAL TEAMS
Five-on-five, the Flames weren’t bad on Wednesday night, although they weren’t as good as they have been lately. The good news is the Flames scored a power-play goal, credited to Micheal Ferland, who stretched his career-long goal streak to five games. The bad news is they also surrendered a short-handed goal, their third of the season.
The worse news is the Red Wings scored four power-play goals, dropping the Flames’ penalty-kill percentage to a league-worst 70.8. The PP hasn’t been good. The PK has been bad.
If the Flames are going to contend for a Pacific Division title or at least a playoff spot, they are going to have to be better on special teams.
4. SHENANIGANS
With the game out of reach on the scoreboard, things got out of hand on the ice in the third period. The shenanigans started when Flames defenceman Brett Kulak hit Red Wings forward David Booth. Kulak did get his hands in Booth’s face, but it was a play that you see countless times and should have been no big deal – only it was for Luke Witkowski. Witkowski, who is a bubble NHLer, at best, decided to jump Kulak and force him to fight. A healthy scratch in seven of the previous eight games, I’m not sure what the 210-pound Red Wings defenceman was thinking when he mugged the 187-pound Flames blueliner, who is far from a dirty player.
That’s when things went south. A line brawl almost turned into a bench brawl. As unhappy as the Flames were with what Witkowski did to Kulak, they should be even more upset with what Anthony Mantha did to Travis Hamonic. With players from both teams gathered between the benches, Hamonic got pushed through an open Red Wings bench door and was laying flat on his back beside the bench when Mantha jumped on top of him and started throwing bombs. While I think Mantha is a fantastic young player, what he did to Hamonic completely crossed the line. The Flames defenceman agreed.
The Flames are pissed off about what happened on Wednesday night. They’re not happy with the way that they played and upset about what happened late in the game. It will be interesting to see what they do with that anger. Wednesday’s 8-2 loss to the Red Wings could bring the team together or pull them apart. I suspect the former, not the latter, will happen.
5. AWESOME ARENA
The late Mr. Ilitch, the city of Detroit and the Red Wings should be proud. Very proud. Little Caesars Arena is magnificent – one of the best in the NHL.
Like every new arena, the building has almost anything and everything that fans could want. What separates “The Pizza Box” from most other arenas for me is how it feels. My broadcast partner, Peter Loubardias put it best when he said, “it feels like a hockey rink.” That is so true. Little Caesars Arena is a perfect mix of old and new.
With its brick facade on the outside and steep seating on the inside, it feels old, but with its wide concourse, countless restaurants and concessions, state-of-the-art scoreboard etc., it has all the advantages of a new building. It might be my favourite “rink” in the league. Calgary is a world-class city that deserves a world-class arena. When they build one, I hope it looks and feels like Little Caesars Arena.
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