Huberdeau's miss, self-inflicted wounds doom Flames in winnable game

CALGARY – Standing alone in the dressing room, facing a single scribe, Jonathan Huberdeau didn’t have to wait for the topic to be raised.

His Flames had scored the opening goal for the first time in nine games, setting up a second period in which he stood a few feet from the side of an empty net with the puck on his stick.

Somehow his shot sailed across the crease.  

“I’ve got to put that in and that’s the end,” said Huberdeau, following yet another frustrating outing for the embattled veteran.

“There’s nothing to think about. It can’t be more of an open cage than that.  

“It’s kind of the way the year has been going.”

Last year too.

Things certainly haven’t come easy for Huberdeau since he arrived in Calgary, but nothing seemed easier than having to simply finish a play that wound up being pretty costly for the Flames.

A minute after the gaffe, Nico Hischier capitalized on a Blake Coleman turnover that ended Calgary’s early momentum and tied the game 1-1.  

“It’s frustrating because it could be 2-0 and then they score right after,” said Huberdeau, whose club lost 4-2.

“It could have been a different game.

“You’ve got to get it out of your mind, but that one kind of hurts.”

Christmas came early for the visiting New Jersey Devils, as Huberdeau and the Flames gift-wrapped this one.

Midway through the second period, the Devils went up 2-1 on goal that saw a Coleman crease-clearing pass bounce off Jesper Bratt and then MacKenzie Weegar into his own net.

Midway through the third, as fans waited for the team to add to its league-leading six third-period comeback wins, a botched Dustin Wolf pass to his defender saw an Alexander Holtz centring pass ricochet off the skates of Chris Tanev and then Dillon Dube before going in.

“There were some funny ones, but you’ve got to find a way to make good on your opportunities and when you have something that goes against you you want to make sure you’re backing your teammate up so it doesn’t end up in the back of your net,” said coach Ryan Huska, who was then asked what it does to your bench when you a player miss an easy open net.

“They kind of ride the wave of emotion like all of us do – you think it’s going in and it doesn’t end up going in, so they’re probably thinking like the coaches are: ‘how did it not go in?’

“But it happens. It’s part of the game and they’ve all been around that before.”

They weren’t given any breaks by the officials either, as a coach’s challenge that suggested Wolf had been interfered with by a Devil on the second goal was unsuccessful, handing the Devils a power play. 

“It felt like we probably should have been up three goals early in the second period and we just had some missed opportunities and didn’t take advantage of what I felt was a pretty dominant first period,” said Coleman, who set up Yegor Sharangovich for a late first period shorthanded goal the Belarussian finished in alone with a sick backhand deke against his former club.  

“We let them hang around and then unfortunately I get the turnover on the first one, I shoot it off a guy into the net on the second one and then another bad bounce off our guys on the third one.

“Frustrating because we had that game in hand and we weren’t able to take care of it.”

With the flu rattling around the Flames dressing room Wolf got the start over Dan Vladar who was one of several players under the weather.

The wildly popular rookie made 26 saves before the Devils added an empty netter.

“He made a young mistake on the one puck handle on the last goal, but I thought he played well for us tonight,” said Huska, whose club wrapped up a six-game homestand with a 3-3 record that had plenty of ups and downs.

Walker Duehr and Martin Pospisil also missed the game due to the flu, prompting management to recall Matt Coronato, who had eight goals and 18 points in 14 games with the Wranglers.

Playing on an effective line with Connor Zary and Nazem Kadri, the rookie with the big shot rang one off the post.

The Flames leave Sunday for a three-game road trip that sees them play in Denver Monday, Vegas Tuesday and Minnesota Thursday.