The current home stand the Calgary Flames are on right now has quickly turned into a league-wide message: A visit to the Saddledome may lead to a quiet trip home. Looking to simultaneously extend both their home winning streak and overall winning streak to eight games, the Flames hosted the Anaheim Ducks in a divisional showdown.
First period
Early in the first period, the Flames opened the scoring. Dillon Dube fought for possession behind the Ducks’ net, and as the puck cycled to the boards, a shot from the blueline by Rasmus Andersson was tipped by Dube for his second goal in as many nights.
The Flames weren’t done yet though. Midway through the frame, Calgary was on the power play and doubled their lead. Elias Lindholm is currently credited for the goal, but looking at the replay it should be corrected to Sean Monahan, who shoved it into the net on the goal line. It’s either Lindholm’s 20th of the season or Monahan’s eighth.
Similar to their game the night prior against Columbus, the Flames didn’t have the best opening period as the Ducks pushed back against their multi-goal deficit.
Second period
Less than two minutes into second period, the Ducks got on the board. On the Ducks’ transition into the Flames’ zone, Sonny Milano got behind all the Flames and was able to beat Jacob Markstrom.
Just over two minutes after, the Flames restored their two-goal lead. Elias Lindholm entered the offensive zone by sending the puck towards the far boards. Presumably meant as a pass to Johnny Gaudreau, the puck ricocheted off the boards directly to Lindholm in the slot. A perfect shot went top shelf over Gibson’s glove and Lindholm guaranteed his 20th goal of the season was scored tonight regardless of the potential stat change on the earlier goal.
The Flames struck in rapid succession as less than a minute later. The Flames were back on the power play and on a transition play into the offensive zone, Matthew Tkachuk was the trailing player—being wide open to receive a pass from Gaudreau and snipe a shot past Gibson.
Four goals against on 20 shots was enough to end John Gibson‘s night and Anthony Stolarz came into the game in relief.
The Flames suffocated the Ducks throughout the second and didn’t allow the visitors to generate much offence at all—Calgary didn’t exactly look like they played just 24 hours ago.
Third period
In the third, the Ducks answered back with a shorthanded goal courtesy of Isac Lundestrom. It’d be just the Flames’ second shorthanded goal against this season, moving them from a tie with the Minnesota Wild for second in the league to a five-way tie for fourth (the Toronto Maple Leafs remain the only team yet to cede a shorthanded goal against this season).
As the period wound down, the Ducks pulled Stolarz to try to mount a comeback. However, the Flames got offensive zone possession and Gaudreau had to make a choice between securing the win on the empty net or giving Lindholm a chance for a hat trick—he opted for the former and the Flames were up 5–2 with Gaudreau’s 20th goal of the season.
With the victory secured, the Flames weren’t done scoring either. Andrew Mangiapane scored his team-leading 25th goal of the season with just over two minutes to go to cap off the win. Flames are now on an eight-game win streak and are the hottest team in the league.
Check out the data visualisations from the game below!
Game events
All situations corsi
5v5 corsi
Shifts
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