The Calgary Flames weren’t about to come out and call it a “schedule-loss.”
Making excuses isn’t in their DNA.
But playing their third game in four nights and their second straight on the road in less than 24 hours probably was never going to be the recipe for the Flames’ best performance of the season.
And with that in mind, the Flames (24-14-7) probably won’t lose much sleep about seeing their three-game winning streak snapped in a 5-2 loss to the Western Conference-leading Winnipeg Jets (34-14-3).
“There’s never really any excuses,” Flames centre Nazem Kadri told reporters in Winnipeg. “Obviously, playing a back-to-back and two games in less than 24 hours was significant, along with the travel. It was nice to split the road trip up and now we’ve got to go back home and get some points.”
The Flames did well enough to hang around in five-on-five play against the Jets, but any objective analysis of Sunday evening’s game would ultimately have to come to the conclusion that the home side in Winnipeg was the better team on the night.
After Kyle Connor scored an absolutely beautiful opener, dancing around Daniil Miromanov before slotting the puck in the top corner past Dan Vladar, the Jets always felt like they were in control.
Goals from MacKenzie Weegar and Nazem Kadri kept the Flames in it despite two from Gabriel Viladri for the Jets, but there was never a sustained period where it felt like they had it in them to fully flip the script. Two power-play goals in the third for the Jets sealed the deal.
“In a situation we were in against a good team in their building on a back-to-back, I thought we did a lot of good things to slow them down and keep them at bay,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska told reporters.
Ultimately, it was two points dropped for the Flames, who remain three points ahead of the Vancouver Canucks and sitting in the second Wild Card position in the Western Conference.
Here’s three takeaways from Sunday’s loss:
TOUGH START
By no means was Vladar at fault for Sunday’s loss. There were lots of reasons behind the Jets being the better team, and it would be unfair to place the defeat squarely at Vladar’s feet.
But he stopped only 22-of-27 shots and didn’t come up with the big saves that would have given the Flames a chance to stay in it.
He wasn’t great, basically. And he needed to be.
“There were certain situations where I felt we could use a save, which isn’t something we have said a lot this year,” Huska told reporters.
Vladar has been on the bench for the Flames’ previous four games as Dustin Wolf has asserted himself as the team’s go-to starter.
Nothing that happened on Sunday night will have changed that approach going forward.
TOUGH TIMES AGAIN
The Flames had shown improvement on the penalty-kill in recent games, but their struggles returned on this weekend road-trip.
After allowing a goal on one of the Minnesota Wild’s two attempts in Saturday night’s 5-4 win, the Flames allowed goals on both the man-advantages they gave up against the Jets.
The Jets have the NHL’s best power-play and score on 33.3% of their opportunities, while the Flames have the league’s fourth-worst penalty-kill, at 71.2%.
Maybe that was always a recipe for a tough game and the priority should have been staying out of the box.
“(There are) certain situations where we have to find a way to be better whether they’re a top power-play team in the league like they are or they’re near the bottom,” Huska told reporters.
GETTING UNDER THEIR SKIN
Rasmus Andersson broke out of his goal-scoring slump against the Wild, and while he didn’t manage to get another against the Jets he did provide a reminder that he can be very good at being a bit of a pest.
That happened against the Wild, too, when he gave Marc-Andre Fleury a little jab during a scrum on Saturday night.
And on Sunday, he proved unpopular with the Jets when he got a little too close to goaltender Eric Comrie. It was a pretty inconspicuous play, honestly, but Andersson did managed to draw a penalty from Neal Pionk and it bugged the Jets enough that Morgan Barron gave the Flames blueliner a few shoves later in the third-period.