Flames Visual Recap 29: Calgary wins in Seattle, Giordano scores three points

The Calgary Flames hadn’t played since December 11th due to a bout with COVID, and finally returned to face the Seattle Kraken for the first time in franchise history. It was the first chance for Mark Giordano to face his former club in regular season action as well.

Game recap

The Flames were noticeably slow and rusty to open the game. It definitely looked like they hadn’t played NHL hockey in quite some time, and the Kraken, having played the previous night, looked fresh and ready to go. They opened the scoring just over five minutes into the contest off the stick of none other than Giordano. His first goal against the Flames in his first game? It doesn’t get better than that.

Johnny Gaudreau tied the game midway through the first off a nice feed from Nikita Zadorov, and the Flames headed to the first intermission tied with the Kraken at one. It was a very chippy period, a theme that would endure for the whole game, with a scrum after what seemed like every single whistle. Giordano was often in the middle of the action.

Just nine seconds into the second period, Calle Jarnkrok restored the Kraken’s lead. However, the Flames scored two goals in the second period, one from Gaudreau and one from Milan Lucic, to take a 3-2 lead into the second intermission.

The third period was madness. Yanni Gourde scored five minutes in to even things up at three goals apiece. Then, with five minutes remaining in the period, Andrew Mangiapane scored a clutch power play goal to give the Flames a 4-3 edge. All they had to do was hang on for the win, but he Kraken wouldn’t go quietly into the night. Jared McCann tied the game again with just under three minutes to play.

Just 13 seconds later though, Matthew Tkachuk put the Flames back on top with the eventual game winning goal. Noah Hanifin scored an empty netter to ice it, but the third period was chaos in the best way possible.

Giordano finished the game with three points, the Flames finished with two points, and it was a great evening back after almost three weeks.

Game visualizations are below.