Danny Austin
Postmedia Network
The Calgary Flames haven’t won a game in their last five.
Sure, they’ve gotten loser-points in three of those games.
But five losses is five losses.
And yes, there’s frustration that is starting to set in for the Flames (13-12-6) after Friday night’s 5-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues (15-15-1). That’s inevitable.
“Yeah, of course, we lost (five) in a row,” said Flames centre Elias Lindholm. “Everyone’s frustrated. We want to win and get into a playoff spot, but the way we played tonight we’re not going to go get in there.”
The Flames have played some good hockey during their little five-game winless streak. They’ve pushed teams to shootouts, have mounted comebacks and have gotten some very solid goaltending.
They were only trailing 2-1 to the Blues at the second intermission on Friday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome and there was every reason to believe they could pull out a win.
But it didn’t happen. Just like it hasn’t really happened in those pivotal, game-deciding moments over this five-game stretch.
Instead of the Flames mounting a comeback, Pavel Buchnevich extended the Blues’ lead just 3:46 into the final frame.
Flames defenceman Connor Mackey did manage to breathe some life into the building with his second of the night a couple minutes later, but he then turned the puck over behind his own net, setting up a game-killing Brandon Saad winner. Jordan Kyrou added insult to injury before the game was through.
“We’ve been playing all these one-goal games … it was still a one-goal game, you’ve still got to score that goal,” Flames head coach Darryl Sutter said about the way the third period played out.
The Flames did manage to fire 42 shots at Blues goaltender Thomas Greiss, but it was Markstrom who was often tasked with getting in the way of the more dangerous opportunities. Markstrom’s final statline wasn’t great, as he saved only 18-of-23 shots, but this loss can’t be pinned on him.
It was on the other end of the ice where the concerns should lie. The Flames went 0-for-3 on the power-play and at-times seemed to settle for shots from the outside while struggling to create traffic in front of Greiss.
They’re off to California next. There are winnable games on that trip.
But if they’re going to take advantage, they’ll need to be a lot better than they were on Friday night.
“It’s not getting away from us,” Flames centre Mikael Backlund said. “We know we can still do a really good thing here, but we’ve gotta pull it together here and be a lot better. Execution wasn’t good enough tonight, secondary efforts, didn’t do enough to score and then we gave them some goals.
“We haven’t given up here. We know we’re chasing it, for sure, we’re behind in the standings and we know we need to play better, win more games, and we’re going to do it.”
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
The Flames in 18 one-goal games this season. That’s more than any other team in the NHL.
What does that tell head coach Darryl Sutter about his team?
Well, it tells him pretty much exactly what you’d think it tells him.
“It means you’re either winning by one or you’re tied or you’re losing by one,” Sutter said. “If you think about it, that’s what it means.”
The Flames head coach did add that the stat indicates that, at the very least, the Flames have been right in the mix in most of the games they’ve played this season.
Unfortunately, the Flames only had a 7-5-6 record in those one-goal games.
They need to start turning some of those one-goal losses into wins, which is easier said than done.
“I think we’re in every game,” Sutter said. “(But) I said the other night, dead-on, 100%, you need guys to be game-breakers.
QUICK HITS
A congratulations is in order for Jacob Markstrom and his new fiancée Amanda. The Flames announced on Twitter on Friday afternoon that the two have gotten engaged … The Flames won’t be wearing their reverse retros anymore this season, having rocked them for the last time in Wednesday’s game against the Vancouver Canucks. Friday’s game marked the first of 10 remaining games in their Blasty jerseys, though …
The Wranglers will be doing a big celebration for Brett Sutter on December 21. The forward will be playing his 1,000th AHL game … Connor Mackey’s first period goal was his second in the NHL, but his previous tally came at the end of the 2021 season when COVID restrictions were in full effect. That meant that Friday’s goals were his first in front of actual fans.
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