Gulutzan galled about Tkachuk’s costly penalty
Hurricanes score the game-winner on ensuing power play to eke out a victory
In his post-game confession, Matthew Tkachuk accepted the blame multiple times.
But that might not be good enough for Glen Gulutzan.
And while the Calgary Flames’ 2-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night didn’t come down to one penalty — specifically, the unnecessary (stupid?) roughing penalty taken by the 19-yearold sophomore at the end of the second period, the one that led to a scuffle between the teams well after the horn blew, and the one that led to Justin Williams’s gamewinning goal — it could have some immediate implications.
“It feels like, to me, it’s the same guys taking penalties … the same types of penalties,” Gulutzan said, clearly steaming at the Scotiabank Saddledome. “Those guys are going to dress, but unfortunately they’re going to lose some of their prime real estate ice time.”
Tkachuk, by the way, had two penalties on this night while centre Sam Bennett was also in the box. Both have taken six minor penalties apiece through seven games this season.
The play in question was when the Flames’ current you-knowwhat disturber and Tkachuk shoved the former Flames youknow-what-disturber Josh Jooris as soon as the period had finished.
“It’s uncalled for,” Tkachuk said afterward. “That was stupid — uncalled for at the end of the period. Stuff like that, whether you think it’s a penalty or not, you can’t put yourself in that position. I take full responsibility for today.”
“You can’t put the game in the refs’ hands. We took however many penalties again tonight. Mine, personally, cost us the game. You take full responsibility for it,’’ Tkachuk said. “It’s unfortunate that mine cost us the game. Whatever I have to deal with, whatever I have to do, we’ll do it with our head up.”
The Flames had four days between games to clean up a number of areas. Chief among their concerns was their recent penchant for penalties. During practice this week, Gulutzan halted a drill to define the perimeters of a slashing infraction when Dougie Hamilton let a few hacks go.
The Flames took another six penalties, completely disrupting their momentum and sync — exactly the issue that had Gulutzan fuming a week ago after his team’s 6-0 shellacking by the visiting Ottawa Senators (and, again, in Saturday’s 5-2 win in Vancouver).
They managed to kill off five of the six Carolina power plays, while their penalty kill has been excellent so far this 2017-18 National Hockey League campaign.
But it doesn’t really matter when it costs you the hockey game which, on this night, it did.
“A 1-0 game, now it’s 2-0 against a good defensive team,” Gulutzan said of Tkachuk’s penalty, which led to Williams’s marker 1:09 into the third. “That’s a tough hill to come back from.”
Having killed off four of four Carolina power plays up until that point, the unit of Mark Giordano, Michael Stone, Troy Brouwer and Matt Stajan were dispatched.
But a failed clearing attempt by Giordano led to a passing play between Noah Hanifin and Jeff Skinner and allowed Skinner to tee up Williams. Flames netminder Mike Smith — a saviour for his team in their seven games — had no chance.
Too bad because, again, Smith had saved their bacon on several occasions, especially in the second period when the Hurricanes outshot the Flames 15-6 and, at the end of the Flames’ sixth penalty kill when he made an unbelievable toe save on Joakim Nordstrom. In the end, the 35-year-old Flames netminder turned aside 31 shots in the losing effort.
Needless to say, Gulutzan was not surprised that his team looked out of sync — again.
“What’s disappointing is … we’re doing the exact same thing we should have learned from last year — and did learn from in the second half of the season last year,” he said. “We’re right back to where we started.
“Hopefully it doesn’t take us 15 games to get out of it.”