The Calgary Flames comfortably beat the Minnesota Wild 4-2, sweeping the season series 3-0, but more importantly keeping their playoff hopes alive.
Here are my three takeaways from the game:
1) Offensive destruction
And I’m not just talking about the four goals. We could write an essay about how spectacular each of them was. After all, with the Flames scoring an average of 2.59 goals per game this season, scoring four of them AND winning is always a reason to celebrate.
But that’s not the whole story.
The Flames outshot the Wild 32-18: a difference of 14.
The Flames outshot the Wild in unblocked shots 49-36: a difference of 13.
When it was all said and done, Calgary had an Expected Goals value of 3.83, while Minnesota had 1.8. That’s a difference of 2.03.
Complete. Domination.
2) Special teams hanging in there
Well, 1-for-2 is an improvement over 0-for-6 in the power play, so let’s give credit to that beauty of a wrist shot in the man-advantage by Nazem Kadri. The key now is consistency.
There was never any doubt about this team’s penalty killing ability. Going 2-for-2 is now a regular day at the office.
3) Blueliners were heroes
Earlier, we mentioned the Wild were outscored 2.03 in Expected Goals. A lot of that credit goes to the defensemen who blocked would-be shots towards the Calgary net, and thus preventing scoring opportunities.
Flames players had blocked 24 of the Wilds’ shots, and six of those came from Joel Hanley. Three each came from Rasmus Andersson and MacKenzie Weegar.
That made life easier for goalie Dustin Wolf.
The Calgary Flames will stay at home to face the San Jose Sharks on Sunday evening. Puck drop is at 6:00 MT/8:00 ET.
