It was a back and forth game between the Flames and Oilers last night. In the end the Flames were caught with their foot off the gas pedal as the Oilers stormed back from a 0-3 deficit to win it 4-3. McDavid and Draisaitl took the offence on their back with six points between them and Jesse Puljujarvi. Some important lessons need to be learned from this game. Let’s review a few of them.

Penalties against the best power play in the league
Pretty simple stuff here. The Oilers went 2/3 on the power play last night. McDavid and Draisaitl scored two powerplay markers in the third to tie the game then take the lead. Nikita Zadorov and Erik Gudbranson played over two minutes of PK time last night each and Flames were scored on in 66% of their penalties. You do the math.

McDavid is a whiner
Every news outlet in Canada is running with McDavid’s complaint about being tripped by Chris
Tanev while driving the net. He’s right in that it should have been assessed a two minute penalty, but complaining about the dangerous nature of the trip when he’s barrelling full speed at the opposing goalie is ignoring common sense. It’s going to be a dangerous play no matter what if he makes the decision to drive that hard to the net.

The Oilers blue line is weak down low
The Flames generated chances by working the puck down low. The Keith-Ceci pairing were overwhelmed trying to break up the cycle. Nine million dollar defenseman Darnell Nurse made a misplay on the breakout and ricocheted the puck off an Oiler skate out in front of his own net. Matt Tkachuk happily capitalized on the mistake and dragged the puck into a top shelf goal. The flames had a ton of chances immediately in front of the net last night. Expect more of that when the two face off on Oct. 16.

The game was decided by momentum changes
The first period started with the Oilers leading 9-2 in shots. After Tkachuk’s goal the momentum swung for Calgary and the Flames outshot the Oilers 12-2 for the last 10 minutes of the period. The flames held momentum for the first half of the second and dominated with a 15-4 shot count. Despite this, a goal from Perlini gave the Oilers the breath of life with a garbage goal for his fifth of the preseason. Then Draisaitl made a huge play out of the corner to set up Puljujarvi — you could just sense there was blood in the water. The third period — I don’t want to talk about.

The Flames easily could have won that game
Calgary got far more quality opportunities to score. This kind of game hurts to experience, but a couple bounces go differently and this game would have been won. The Flames had a goal called off in the first. Andersson had a chance from the point in the dying seconds. Overall the product on the ice looks good and the team defence will iron out in the coming weeks.



Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk
This line came out flying again. They scored all three Flames goals five on five. Gaudreau, who left the game for precautionary reasons in the third, looks just so different when he isn’t driving the line on his own. As mentioned before, Tkachuk had a nice goal in the first. Lindholm scored a one-timer in the second after Mangiapane worked the puck down low. It’s thought that the precautionary reasons were concussion-related.

Mangiapane-Monahan-Lewis
Mang was buzzing last night. He passed to himself off the boards and net several times to elude defenders. One such instance started off a sequence that led to Lindholm scoring a one-timer goal from the low slot. Monahan played a quiet game other than his faceoffs, which he was 38%. He has some rust to shake. Lewis caught a few chances out front and played safe defensive game.


Dube-Backlund-Ritchie
Dube was using his feet well. He crossed the opposing blue line at full speed a few times. There is some chemistry developing between these three. While they were held off the scoresheet, that wasn’t due to a lack of opportunity. The line registered seven shots on net.


Lucic-Richardson-Duehr
Richardson was the only center with a faceoff percentage above 48%. At 67%, he did well on the dot. Duehr used his skating well enough, but it didn’t look like his best game. Fatigue might be getting to him. Lucic was his same physical self, but it would be nice to see more offence from this line.


Hanifin-Andersson
Hanifin’s skating looked great for a guy who hasn’t played an NHL game for about five months. This pairing surprisingly played zero PK time. Something that needs to change. Andersson has been slowly improving on himself with each game.

Zadorov-Tanev
Zadorov lost his man on the Puljujarvi goal. Jesse had too much distance built on him. Zadorov got caught on the wrong side of the puck a few times — that’s something Darryl Sutter has been known to bench players for. Not sold on this pairing. Tanev took on a lot of the defensive responsibilities last night and led all defensemen in PK time with 3:14.


Kylington-Gudbranson
Gudbranson blew his coverage on the Oilers first goal. He was the far side defenseman and got caught cross checking a player instead of covering the front of the net. Kylington played well given his defence partner. He used his skating to stay with McDavid on a few plays.


Markstrom
Markstrom made some huge saves. He’s getting back into form.


The Flames play the Winnipeg Jets tommorow at 6pm. Only time will tell if it’s being streamed. I’ll update it at the top when that information becomes available.



Cheers,


Trevor Neufeld

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