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Playoff Hopes Dashed in Typical Flames Fashion — Kadri — Game Day |
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You have to laugh at this point.
Chicago, Columbus and Anaheim have 56 points in 76 regular season games in 2022-23. Calgary’s record against said teams?
3-4-2
A very laughable .500 points percentage. The appropriate word is “laughable”, right? The emotion we’re trying to identify here is like laugh-crying except without any of the joy.
This three teams occupy 30th, 31st, and 32nd in the standings as of April 5.
Based on the consistent underperformance of this team, you can safely put a bit of money on a win against the Jets. Calgary shows up against good teams and flops in games that should be a shoo-in.
A few observations on the game before we get to today’s game against the Jets.
Team Play
We can examine individual performances in a minute, but there were obvious issues in the team play. The inability to establish possession entering the neutral zone was few and far between. Chip-outs, flip-ups, whatever hyphenated description you want; the Flames sent the puck into contested territory and gambled on the results.
Did that result in proper results? According to advanced analytics, yes. Per naturalstatrick, there wasn’t a period of hockey where the Flames didn’t out-chance the Blackhawks. 68-38 in shot attempts. 35-20 in scoring chances. 12-8 in high danger chances.
Mind you those are the five-on-five stats. Including special teams, we don’t see a major deviance from their five-on-five numbers. For the sake of brevity and given how gut-punching this season has been, we don’t need to go too far into pointing out a five to ten percent deviance in some of those categories.
Using the eye test? We saw a much different game. The Blackhawks held the Flames to the outside and covered their gaps in the defensive zone enough to only allow a handful of legitimate scoring opportunities.
Markstrom
Another goal against within the first four shots. Given the blown coverage, it’s hard to put much blame on the 6’6” Swede.
That said, you expect better performance when the Coach sticks his neck out and vouches for you as the go-to for this season-defining back-to-back.
Kadri
In polar opposite fashion of his clutch personality last season en route to a Stanley Cup — Nazem Kadri put up a massive stinker.
The 32-year-old from London, Ontario had two turnovers that led to goals against.
The second Chicago goal was a terribly-read drop pass by Kadri to no one on the offensive blue line followed by a failed attempt at retrieving the puck out of the left defensive corner. A couple of passes and the puck is past Jacob Markstrom for a back-breaking 2-1 goal with less than a minute left in the first period.
On the third Chicago goal, he was stripped of the puck at the blue line and simply couldn’t dig hard enough to catch up to the 2-on-1. Whether it’s a lower body issue or that he was simply dogging it on the backcheck is unclear, but there have been many similar plays like that this year.
Last night marked the 11th game where Kadri has posted a -2 at even strength.
Weegar
McKenzie Weegar put up a solid performance aside from a questionable 2-on-1 where he got toe dragged for the Blackhawks third goal. The textbook says to take away the pass — which he did.
That play aside, the 29-year-old right-shot defenceman put up an exceptional game.
Darryl
The fourth line received some questionable deployment. Particularly after TV timeouts. Darryl has a style that is hard to question given his resume, but you have to wonder if the results would have been different had he simply double-shifted his higher-end players after breaks. The rest is there.
The goalie choices have been an everyday occurrence. Challenge yourself to find a Flames fan that doesn’t want to see AHL phenom Dustin Wolf get a win-and-you’re-in opportunity.
A few notes on today’s game against the Jets.
The Standings
With the Jets and Predators now holding a game in hand on the Flames and the Jets holding a two-point lead (89-87) as well as having the tiebreaker in terms of regulation wins — Calgary’s playoff hopes are essentially dashed.
Calgary is close enough to maintain the possibility of making it, but far enough to realistically say that they’re toast.
It’s a tough place to be for everyone. Fans would like to see Jakob Pelletier and Matthew Coronato get some ice time, a few certain Flames players likely just want the season to be over, and you would imagine Darryl could use a break from all of the public scrutiny.
A loss tonight would certainly do it.
The Jets
Winnipeg enters today with two full days of rest having last played on Sunday in a 6-1 win over the New Jersey Devils. On the opposite end of the rest scale is Calgary playing their third game in four nights.
That could go both ways. Maybe the Flames have more recent repetition and hit the ground running. Maybe the Jets had enough time to reset their momentum after winning two in a row.
Or maybe the Flames show up mentally and physically drained and put up another poor performance. Either seems possible.
Full Ignition
Getting shut out by Manitoba boy, James Reimer, and the San Jose Sharks on March 28 appears to have awoken something inside of the Jets locker room. The team has 12 goals in their last two games. Nine players have at least two points over the two outings against the Red Wings and Devils.
In other words, whoever is in the Calgary net tonight should be ready for some confident shooters.
Calgary Flames Projected Lineup
No word on any changes. Stay tuned for an update at warmups.
Mangiapane-Lindholm-Toffoli
Huberdeau-Backlund-Coleman
Ritchie-Kadri-Dube
Lucic-Lewis-Duehr
Weegar-Andersson
Hanifin-Tanev
Zadorov-Stecher
Markstrom
Vladar
Winnipeg Jets Projected Lineup
Courtesy of Mike McIntyre. @mikemcintyrewpg
Connor-Dubois-Scheifele
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Wheeler
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Stenlund-Maenalanen
Samberg-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt
Hellebuyck
Rittich
Game time is 5:30 pm MST. Catch the broadcast on Sportsnet and TVAS.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via naturalstattrick.com and nhl.com.
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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