Flames Game Recaps

Flames Visual Recap 22: Calgary plays a complete game, find offence from familiar lines

The Calgary Flames matched up against the Ottawa Senators in the early hours of Saturday. After the outcome from their first game against the Senators, the Flames knew they had to make some major adjustments. Changes in personnel were out of the question, but were still in need of some form of shake up. Tweaking the line combinations was a start for the Flames, and it led to quick returns.

The Flames opened the game with a flurry, which in itself was a major change from previous games, but they were also rewarded on the scoreboard for their efforts. Juuso Valimaki potted his first goal of the season four minutes into the game from a nifty pass from Johnny Gaudreau.

Less than a minute later, Mikael Backlund doubled the Flames’ lead. Just a little over the midway point of the period, the Flames further extended their lead to three goals, as Elias Lindholm scored on a trademark Lindholm snipe off of a turnover. Things were looking particularly good for the Flames and they were simply rolling.

However, the Senators got on the board not too long after Calgary’s third goal, with Drake Batherson scoring to extend his goal streak. Heading into the intermission, the Flames had lots of positives to build on, as the first period emphatically went the Flames’ way for the first time in a while.

The momentum the Flames had in the first carried right into the second. Four minutes in, Sean Monahan scored on the power play, much to his relief as he’s finally stringing together some goals. At the game’s midpoint mark, Andrew Mangiapane potted a shorthanded goal to boot, bringing the game to a score of 5-1 for the Flames. However, less than a minute later, Colin White answered back for the Senators on the power play to cut the lead down to three.

Before the period concluded, older brother Matthew Tkachuk scored a goal on a perfect tip, restoring the Flames’ four goal lead heading into the third. The Senators put in Joey Dacccord in relief of Matt Murray, but besides that, not much happened in the first ten minutes of the final frame. Yet, right at the 10:00 minute mark, younger brother Brady Tkachuk matched his brother with a goal himself. The Senators converted on the power play for the third time in the game, and the Senators seemingly had some life.

Not many shot attempts came from either team for the remainder of the game though, and Tkachuk’s goal would be the last. The Flames walk away from the matinee with a 6-3 victory. All six goals from the Flames came from some combination of their top six forwards or top power play unit.

Check out the visualisations from the game here:

Game events

All situations corsi

Check out our tutorial on how to plot an NHL rink using R with the full code and customisation options included!

5v5 corsi

Shifts

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