They escaped with a 3-1 victory, the locals left feeling like they deserved a better fate. Andersson and Wilson were still jawing in the sin-bin when
“It’s emotions, right?” said Andersson, not the only person in the building who noticed Wilson writhing in pain after a cross-check by call-up Adam Klapka — and then staying on the ice for the ensuing power-play. “We were down 2-1 with four minutes left, and it’s a couple scrums. There’s a lot on the line for us. It’s a lot of emotions. That’s one part of the game that I enjoy is to chirp a little bit and to get under skin. It’s just the way it went that today it was Wilson. Next game it’s someone else probably.
“It’s not the first time we’ve chirped each other. It was pretty quiet until the end and I got him going, he got me going. It worked out for them. But it’s all fun. It’s part of it, in my opinion at least.”
“Just a fluke thing,” Coleman said. “I catch it with my top hand, which is kind of an uncomfortable spot to be.
“I’d normally catch a puck in my left hand. For whatever reason, it was my top hand. I didn’t really want to drop it in the crease, so I just tried to clear it out of the zone.”
“Honestly, I felt like we deserved better. Just some critical situations that were the difference,” Coleman said. “Five-on-five, I don’t feel like it was really even that close who the better team was. We just didn’t find ways to put pucks in the net and a few breakdowns and mental mistakes.”
Tyson Barrie might be wishing that someone suggested a conditioning stint sooner.
It certainly seems to have had the desired effect — for both a team that is still looking for the right mix among their depth defencemen and for a dude who had been collecting dust for the past two-and-a-half months.
After being scratched for 29 in a row, Barrie knocked off the rush this past weekend with the AHL’s Wranglers, notching three points in a two-game stop-over in the minors.
On Tuesday, tapped for his first NHL appearance since Nov. 12, the 33-year-old rearguard was among the bright spots for the Flames.
It was his shot from the point that Coleman deflected for Calgary’s lone marker.
“Obviously, I hadn’t played in almost three months, so I was just trying to come in and enjoy it and play loose and not put too much pressure on myself and squeeze the stick too hard,” said Barrie, who skated with Brayden Pachal on the third pairing and was also on one of the power-play units. “That’s when you start making mistakes and I’d find myself back in the rafters real quick. So I was just trying to keep it loose and stick to the things I do well.”
What he does well, of course, is generate offence.
In 17:20 of icetime, he showed that.
In the final seconds of the first period, he put a puck on net that resulted in a rebound opportunity for his power-play pal Andersson.
Late in the second, he fired a rising shot through traffic from the point and clanked the crossbar.
Barrie was left chasing Protas on that shorthanded breakaway, but that can be blamed on an unlucky bounce.
Huska described his performance as “excellent,” a good indication that we’ll see him again when the Anaheim Ducks pay a visit Thursday.