Flames Visual Recap 60: Ritchie scores his first as Calgary doubles up Devils

After a borderline illegal week that saw them play five games in seven days (Darryl Sutter‘s words, not mine), the Calgary Flames returned home to host the New Jersey Devils. Jacob Markstrom tended the pipes for the Flames, while the Devils turned to rookie Nico Dawes.

Just prior to puck drop, the Flames acquired Calle Jarnkrok from the Seattle Kraken, a boost to the bottom six that likely means Brett Ritchie is coming out of the lineup on Friday. He clearly didn’t like the demotion.

Game recap

The Devils owned possession for the majority of the first period. They started off strong and tested Markstrom early and often. The Flames opened the scoring however, midway through the first period off the stick of none other than Brett Ritchie. His first goal and point of the season gave the Flames the early lead.

The Devils answered back with a nice goal from Dawson Mercer who fired home a wrister top shelf over Markstrom’s glove. The Flames took back the lead at the very end of the period off Andrew Mangiapane‘s 30th goal of the season. The breadman has been amazing this season and is officially a 30 goal scorer in the NHL. With 22 games to go, can he hit 40?

Five minutes into the second period P.K. Subban scored on a deceptive shot that tied the game at two apiece. However, the Flames took over from there. They added three goals of their own in the second frame off the sticks of Dillon Dube, Matthew Tkachuk, and Milan Lucic. Former Flames goalie Jon Gilles relieved Dawes in net after the fourth Flames goal, and was generally much better the rest of the way. Still, the Flames headed into the second intermission with a commanding 5-2 lead.

The Devils tried to claw their way back in the third and cut the Flames’ lead to two with a goal from Yegor Sharangovich, but that’s as close as they would come. Johnny Gaudreau capped the night with an empty netter, and the Flames got back into the win column.

Visualizations of the game are below.