Flames Visual Recap 59: Shut out for the first time this season, Calgary drops game to Colorado

Playing their fifth game of the week, the Calgary Flames travelled to Denver to face off against the Colorado Avalanche. Incidentally, it was also Calgary’s second game of their second back-to-back set of the week, but this set included travel. If there was ever an exclamation point to end a five-game gauntlet week, ending it with an away game on a second leg of a back-to-back versus Colorado would be a good a qualifier as any.

First period

The Flames turned to Dan Vladar between the pipes, making it the second time Vladar’s faced Colorado this season. Wanting to win one for their backup, the Flames played extremely well in the first period, seemingly catching the Avalanche off guard.

However, the Avalanche got up ahead midway through the period with a power play goal from Nathan MacKinnon. It was a bit of a deflating goal for Calgary—even though they finished the first period with good pressure, their weariness was starting to show and Colorado was visibly quicker.

It was one of those games where the Flames could have really used the opening goal, but they didn’t get it, and the Avalanche one of the best teams at being opportunistic when their opponents have off nights.

Second period

The second period was largely controlled by the Avalanche, and most of the Flames’ shots were from low-danger areas without challenging Darcy Kuemper too heavily. Despite the immense pressure from Colorado, the two teams ended fairly close with second period shots with Calgary actually holding the shots edge with 15–13.

Vladar was sharp in net and was able to turn away much higher danger shots, keeping the Flames in the game as best as he could. Similar to how Thomas Greiss kept the Detroit Red Wings in the game versus the Flames yesterday, the Flames got a similar performance from Vladar.

Third period

Calgary was hanging on as well as they could, but a second goal from MacKinnon really put the Flames deep into a corner. However, instead of letting the goal take the wind out of their sails, Calgary instead found their second wind and pushed back heavily in search of a goal to cut into the deficit.

Their third period push was impressive, but it wasn’t fruitful with the Flames unable to solve Kuemper. Late in the game—the Flames’ net empty—the Avalanche added another goal from Mikko Rantanen to virtually seal the deal.

With just one minute remaining, the Flames were on the power play on a delay of game, so they put up one last effort to end Kuemper’s shutout bid. Matthew Tkachuk had a point blank chance, but a quick glove hand from Kuemper completely robbed Tkachuk.

Still playing 6v4, the Flames continued to play with desperation, but they were unable to solve Kuemper. For the first time in 2021–22—59 games into it—Calgary was finally shutout. The game charts are below.