MacKenzie Weegar did his best to take responsibility for the Calgary Flames’ abysmal performance.
Anyone who watched Thursday night’s 8-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, though, knew that this defeat didn’t lie at the feet of one player.
There were 18 other players in Flames jerseys out on the Saddledome ice, and none of them could feel happy about the way they played.
That’s what happens when you’re a team like the Flames who rely on their tight defensive play to win games and you get away from that style of play.
And that’s especially true against a team that has a player with the otherworldly skill that Nikita Kucherov has. He became the first opponent to record six points in a game in Calgary since Ed Olczyk did it with the Jets back on December 21, 1991. Only three players who skated for the Flames on Thursday were even alive on that night.
“Every guy, we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror,” said Flames forward Jonathan Huberdeau, who scored for the third-straight game. “We can’t trade chances against a team like that. We had to play harder and we didn’t tonight.
“It wasn’t pretty out there. Get this one behind us and come back tomorrow, new day. We just can’t let this happen ever again.”
There wasn’t much to like about the way the Flames played against the Lightning. Yes, they deserve some credit for getting back into the game through goals from Nazem Kadri and Connor Zary after falling behind 4-1 in the second period, but the wheels fully came off in the third.
The Flames have generally been pretty good at home this season and every team is going to have a bad game here-and-there throughout an 82-game season. Hopefully, Thursday night was just a blip.
“We just didn’t defend very well, that’s what it comes down to,” Kadri said. “It was pretty non-existent. Did a good job trying to get back in the game but just gave them too many opportunities. That’s what good players do, they shove it down your throat.”
Here’s three takeaways from Thursday night’s game:
HUNG OUT TO DRY
There’s no way to paint a pretty picture of Vladar’s night.
He stopped only 18-of-26 shots, after all, and no goalie is going to be OK with that
But the guys in front of him deserve much of the blame. The Lightning found ways to get open in front of the net and buried point-blank opportunities. You could reasonably go back and watch eight of their goals and feel like none of them were fully Vladar’s fault.
“It was hanging Vladdy out to dry, which is unacceptable,” Weegar said. “That’s all the leaders, including myself.”
Each of the three players who spoke with the media after the game said a variation of the same thing: The team-as-a-whole let Vladar down.
He’ll still be kicking himself for not making big saves when he needed to, but when blame gets assigned for Thursday’s collapse, it shouldn’t start with the guy between the pipes.
“It wasn’t a good night for the guys in front of him, in my opinion,” said Flames head coach Ryan Huska.
STRUGGLES EVERYWHERE
The Flames were bad defensively at five-on-five on Thursday, so it’s not like the penalty-kill was the only issue.
But they were thoroughly out-classed by a Lightning power-play that looked terrifying at times.
The Lightning had three power-plays and scored all three times. The scary part was that it looked almost automatic and like the Flames had no chance of disrupting their quick, crisp passing. It almost felt like it was just a matter of time before they’d score – and they did.
The Flames PK has rightfully earned praise for the improvements it has shown over the past couple games, but Thursday was a regression.
When your team is allowing eight goals at home for the first time since February 15, 2020, there are other problems that need to be addressed, as well.
But the penalty-kill will need to be a lot better against the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Saturday night.
WONDER GOAL
It’s a bit strange to even try to lean positive with a takeaway after a team allows eight goals, but make sure you check out Kadri’s second-period goal. It’s unlike any you’re going to see this year, that’s for sure.
Kadri was chasing down Lightning defenceman J.J. Moser when Moser blew a tire and fell to the ice. Kadri jumped over Moser, lost his footing, did a 360 to stay upright, recovered the puck and then fired it past Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“Figure skating type, I don’t know what was going on there,” Kadri said. “He ended up falling, just a reaction, tried to jump over him, I hope I didn’t nick him at all. Just tried to stay on my feet and pick the corner, and fortunately it worked out.”
As our Wes Gilbertson wrote on Thursday, Kadri and Huberdeau have been finding real chemistry in recent games, which isn’t something we’ve seen a lot of in their two-plus seasons with the Flames. Martin Pospisil deserves credit for his play on the wing and how it’s opened the ice up for his linemates, so it was a relief when he returned to the ice in the second frame after taking a painful-looking shot to the inside of his knee.