The St. Louis Blues beat the Calgary Flames 3-2 in what came to be a rare thriller situation for the Flames in the Gateway to the West.
Here are the takeaways:
Until the two Calgary goals that were scored in a span of 25 seconds by the 14:29 mark of the second period, the Blues outshot the Flames 22-20, out-chanced them 21-16 in scoring chances and 12-4 in high-danger scoring chances.
After that, it seemed to light a fire in Calgary as until the end of the game, the Flames outshot St. Louis 21-9, out-chanced them 7-6 in scoring chances and 3-2 in high-danger scoring chances.
But Jordan Binnington proved to be too good.
A good start is always necessary.
In the bigger picture, the Flames outshot the Blues 40-31, but St. Louis doubled them in high-danger scoring chances 14-7. Quality counts…
In a one-goal game, a single goal given up on the power play will always be scrutinized. Deservedly so.
But that’s not the only reason why the penalty was costly.
Out of the 18 games Calgary has played so far, the time on the penalty-kill in this game (3:46) ranks the seventh-lowest but the shots on goal given up on it (7) were the seventh-highest and the eventual goal was the nail in the coffin.
Even though it was a losing effort and his small size was taken advantage of, Wolf did face the seventh-most shots on goal in a Flames game this season. He came out with a save percentage of 0.903 which is still a consolation prize in this loss.
This game showed something new in the Flames. That they had spunk and fire (pardon the pun).
For the first time since the season opener, you saw passion on both sides of the ice.
Let’s see if this carries on.
