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A few notes from Calgary vs Anaheim:
1) While the Flames trailed 3-1 in the 3rd period, I think the final scoreline was a lot more reflective of how the game was played. Even when they were down, it never felt like they were out of it. The Flames were always controlling the run of play and getting the better of the chances. It was only a matter of time before they broke through Ryan Miller’s wall.
Calgary has played up-and-down hockey of late, and for whatever reason not fared well at home, so it would have been easy for them to bury their heads in the sand after Nic Desluariers put Anaheim up two; especially given *how* some of their goals were scored.
The Flames stuck to it, though, and eventually overwhelmed a Ducks team playing its third game in four nights. It got to the point where the always reliable Hampus Lindholm - Josh Manson pairing was making glaring mistakes in the defensive, which is pretty telling.
2) Leading the charge in tilting the ice for Calgary was the recently reassembled Matthew Tkachuk - Mikael Backlund - Andrew Mangiapane line. They had the puck a ton in the offensive zone and relentlessly pressured Ducks into turnovers whenever they didn’t. In my opinion, they put forth the most dominant performance we’ve seen from any Flames line in a game all season. Goals were 3-0 CGY at 5v5 with them on the ice and the numbers suggest they were full marks for it. Just look at the chance differential.
This line has now controlled 56% of the expected goals and 58% of the actual goals across 230 minutes of work. Not bad for a ‘2nd’ line.
3) Noah Hanifin is being asked to do a lot right now and, quite honestly, he’s handling the responsibility better than expected. He has a positive 5v5 goal differential, and some pretty strong underlying numbers, without Mark Giordano and Travis Hamonic in the lineup. But the guy just has to clean up the big mistake. Everybody will have some tough moments playing 20+ minutes a night vs good players. That doesn’t excuse some that Hanifin is having because they’re often self inflicted, and often egregious. For example, yesterday he handed Jakob Silfverberg the puck all alone in front of the net. Those kinds of errors are a little too common with him, and it’s tough to out-score mistakes like that on a regular basis. He has to find a way to limit those ones.
4) Don’t look now but, after putting up another six against Anaheim, the Flames have scored 30 goals over the last six games. Even though the bottom-6 is mostly a wasteland in terms of offensive talent, the Flames have underperformed by shooting percentage all season long. They finally seem to be running into positive regression as pucks are starting to go in for depth players. While the Flames still sit 26th in 5v5 SH%, they’re tied for 20th in 5v5 goals and climbing fast.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com
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