Flames Visual Recap 5: Four Flames score en route to a 5–1 victory over the New York Rangers

Continuing on their five-game road trip, the Calgary Flames started the first game in a back-to-back set versus the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils. Going up against the Rangers, the Flames kept their roster in tact coming off their win versus the Washington Capitals, with the sold difference being Jacob Markstrom taking the starter’s net.

Looking to continue their momentum on the road, the Flames opened up the game with plenty of pressure—not too dissimilar compared to their matinee game two days ago. However, there was no three-goal opening frame outburst for the visitors. Instead, the Flames finished the period with a 1–0 lead courtesy of a Chris Tanev goal.

Tanev started the play with pass from behind Markstrom to his defensive partner Oliver Kylington. A couple of passes later saw the puck travel to Elias Lindholm to skate it into the offensive zone to Johnny Gaudreau who was skating along the far boards. Gaudreau found Tanev trailing in, who made no mistake snapping a shot past Igor Shesterkin. It’d be Chris Tanev’s first goal since March 19, 2021, and he’d be just the fifth Flame to find the back of the net so far. On the play, Gaudreau picked up his seventh assist of the season—all of which have been primary.

The first period saw plenty of control in the Flames’ favour, and they were rewarded with a goal. Markstrom was also solid to start the game and didn’t have too hard a time keeping the Rangers from scoring.

Come the second period, the Rangers played with significantly more urgency and dominated the Flames. As per Natural Stat Trick, the Rangers put up six high-danger corsi to the Flames’ zero in the middle frame. Just as the Flames did against the Capitals, they spent most of the second chasing the game. Luckily, if Markstrom was good to start the game, he was entirely dialed in for the second. The Rangers were able to take advantage of the less-than-stellar Flames defence and if not for Markstrom, could have easily tied the game up or more.

Despite being badly outplayed throughout the second, the Flames actually added to their lead early in the period thanks to a great sequence involving Markstrom and Andrew Mangiapane. Markstrom came up with a huge save against Sammy Blais and the puck was immediately cleared out of the zone by Dillon Dube. Getting the puck into the Rangers’ zone, Dube showed a great individual effort for the carry-in, but was unable to set a play up and instead had the stumble by the far boards as Julien Gauthier converged on him.

On a bit of a jumbled play, Filip Chytil ended up with the puck behind the Rangers’ goal line. An errant pass was immediately picked up by Mangiapane in the far circle. Exercising great patience, Mangiapane took his time to skate around the faceoff dot before ripping off a wicked shot to put the Flames up 2–0. After that goal, the Flames survived the Rangers’ second period onslaught and held onto the two goal lead after forty minutes of play.

In the third period, the Rangers made things interesting by scoring their first goal of the game to bring the score to 2–1. Just over five minutes into the final frame, Dryden Hunt scored his first goal as a Ranger. Jacob Trouba took a shot from afar and the rebound was neatly tapped past Markstrom by Hunt.

Less than three minutes later, the Flames restored their two-goal lead. Blake Coleman scored his second as a Flame by backhanding his own rebound past Shesterkin to cap off an excellent shift. Shortly after, Calgary added to their lead to make it a 4–1 game. Mikael Backlund scored on a sneaky and lethal shot that went past Shesterkin’s blocker and bardown to pick up his first goal of the season.

As the game was ending, the Flames added one final marker on the power play with just five seconds left in the game. An initial shot by Rasmus Andersson went wide of the net but the rebound off the boards landed right onto Mangiapane’s stick, who had a wide open net to shoot at for his second goal of the game.

The Flames defeat the Rangers by a final score of 5–1 and extend their winning streak to three games. Calgary finally got their offence going with first goals of the season for both Tanev and Backlund, and Markstrom stood tall in his net—a solid all-around team win. Check out the game visualisations below!