Flames Visual Recap 31: Calgary couldn't hold back Florida's relentless offence

Looking to string together three wins in a row, the Flames had a tough task ahead of them as they had three games against three of the league’s best teams scheduled over the span of four nights—all on the road. The first of which was against the Florida Panthers. It’d be one of their toughest tests of the season.

First period

The game got off to a fast pace of play with both teams fired up to face off against each other. The two teams probably view each other as good litmus tests to evaluate the execution of their own systems on tough opponents. It’d be the Panthers who opened the scoring, as Patric Hornqvist snuck a loose puck in the crease past Jacob Markstrom on the power play.

However, the Flames responded right back just over a minute later with Johnny Gaudreau sprung on a breakaway. Skating two Panthers into the zone, Gaudreau fired a shot off between the hashmarks that beat Sergei Bobrovsky cleanly to tie the game at 1–1.

Three minutes after that, Blake Coleman scored on a tight angle shot that squeaked by Bobrovsky for the Flames’ first lead of the game. The scoring in the period wasn’t over yet though, and the Panthers actually managed to restore their own one-goal lead with Anthony Duclair scoring to tie, and Joe Thornton scoring on the power play.

The wild first period came to a close with the Panthers up 3–2, despite the Flames having a strong edge in scoring chances and expected goals.

Second period

The second period actually saw the pace increase—largely due to Florida being relentless on offence—but the Flames weren’t exactly lagging either. Momentum shifted right into the Panthers’ favour, but both goalies were up to the task. It wasn’t until the end of the period that former Flame Ryan Lomberg extended Florida’s lead to two goals on a play in the dying seconds of the frame.

The Flames had their work cut out for them, as mounting a comeback against a team like the Panthers in their own arena would be an extremely high ask.

Third period

Things didn’t exactly go right for the Flames though. Florida scored their fourth straight goal just under six minutes into the third period. Hornqvist picked up his second of the night on a bit of a broken play with the Flames unable to clear their own zone.

The Flames had chances, but were unable to muster any goals to pull the game closer. Instead, as Calgary’s second power play of the game expired, the Panthers added another goal—this time courtesy of Lucas Carlsson.

With Florida holding such a strong lead, most of the shot attempts came from the Flames to finish the game, but no further goals were scored for either team. The Panthers bested the Flames, 6–2 final score. Game visualisations are below.