Dion Phaneuf, Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter scored power-play goals and Jonathan Quick stopped all 23 shots in the Los Angeles Kings’ 3-0 victory over the Calgary Flames at Staples Center Monday. Here are a few takeaways from Calgary’s road loss.
NO REWARD FOR THE WEARY
The Flames played hard from start to finish on Monday, but for the third time in five games, they weren’t rewarded once offensively. Playing without their top three goal scorers and point producers in Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Matthew Tkachuk, the Flames were outshot for the first time in 12 games and couldn’t capitalize on any of their 23 shots or six scoring chances as Quick posted his fifth shutout of the season and the 49th of his career, the most by an American-born goaltender in NHL history.
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PENALTY KILL FINALLY FALTERS
After going 22-for-23, a league-best 95.7 per cent on the penalty kill in their first 11 games in the month of March, the Flames’ penalty kill surrendered three power-play goals in Monday’s loss to the Kings. For whatever reason, bad penalties tend to be tougher to kill off than good ones, and all three penalties that led to power-play goals against were preventable. Sam Bennett took three penalties on Monday and was sitting in the sin bin for the first two Kings goals.
In the Flames’ defence, the delay of game penalty on Mark Giordano that led to the third goal was mind boggling. Kings forward Trevor Lewis attempted to rim the puck in off the glass, Giordano stuck out his stick and the puck bounced off the blade of it and out of play. The Kings asked for a penalty and during an in-arena timeout, the officials huddled up and spent a number of minutes talking about it before deciding to send the Flames’ Captain to the penalty box. While it may not have mattered in the end, it was a tough call on a Flames team that can’t seem to catch a break right now.
HATHAWAY’S A HIT
After signing a one-year, $650,000 contract with the Flames last summer, Garnet Hathaway had something to prove this season. While Hathaway has spent considerable time playing on the right side of the Flames’ third line with Mark Jankowski and Bennett this season, in a perfect world, I see the 6-foot-2, 208-pound winger as a perfect fourth-liner for the Flames moving forward. After recording 19 points in 18 AHL games with the Stockton Heat, Hathaway was recalled and could be in the NHL to stay. The 26-year-old is not only physical – he’s second on the team in hits with 146, second only to Micheal Ferland — he’s also an agitator that gets under the skin of his opponents. A restricted free agent at the end of the season, I expect Hathaway will be back with the Flames in 2018-2019.
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THINKING ABOUT JOHNNY, GUY AND THE GAUDREAU FAMILY
For the first time this season, the Flames played a game without Gaudreau. The four-time all-star flew home on Sunday when he found out that his father, Guy, had a “cardiac event.” Guy and his wife, Jane, are Johnny’s biggest fans. Mr. and Mrs. Gaudreau have spent a ton of time in Calgary and on the road cheering on their superstar son. I can honestly say that they are wonderful people.
For those of us who work in sport and for those who are passionate about it, sometimes wins and losses feel like life and death. What the Gaudreau family is going through is a reminder that sport is simply a great distraction from the real world — from actual life and death. My thoughts and prayers are with Guy and the entire Gaudreau family.
