Gaudreau takes ownership of gaffe
Gulutzan stresses importance of protecting puck late in games
After a night’s sleep and a day worth of processing what happened in the final three minutes of Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks, Glen Gulutzan reiterated where he wants to see growth from the Calgary Flames.
The topic of conversation, of course, stemmed from a critical turnover by Johnny Gaudreau in the offensive zone. It was one play, yes. And you can argue that the Flames star forward does more for the team on most nights than any other player ( heck, he had six shots on goal plus one of the team’s two markers in the losing effort).
But that doesn’t change the fact the player — and team — can’t improve from their errors and, specifically, their puck management in late game situations.
This season, they’re 9-0-0 when leading after two periods which means that more often than not, if the Flames can manage to pull ahead as they head into the third frame, they can get the job done.
“If we know we’re leading after two periods, and going into the third with a lead, you can do the math,” Gulutzan said. “We have a great chance to win the game and an even better chance to get points. But that’s a critical area we haven’t liked portions of our year within the last three or four minutes leading in the second.
“The other part is, we think we’re one of the best three-on-three teams in the National Hockey League. When you’re three or four minutes in a tie game, we have to be thinking, let’s get the point and let’s get this thing to overtime so our mentality in those critical situations is what we need to learn from.
“Sometime the best time to learn is when you get bit. And we got bit with three minutes left. We just needed to get that thing into overtime.”
With the game tied 2-2, Gaudreau had been cruising on his usual left side in the Sharks zone when he decided to switch directions and turned back up toward the blue-line to try and make a play. That allowed Justin Braun to bump the 23-year-old speedster off the puck, feeding Joe Thornton for a rush up the middle of the ice. It led to Joonas Donskoi’s marker with 2:48 remaining.
Following the frustrating loss, Gaudreau’s turnover was in question and caused Gulutzan to criticize their star player, saying Gaudreau should never turn back to the blueline like he did and should have moved the play forward.
But a day later, both parties were moving forward.
“Hopefully it’s my last turnover that leads to a goal, but it probably won’t be,” said Gaudreau. “You just have to learn from it. I get the freedom to make those types of plays. But I need to be smarter at times and manage the clock a little better. But I get the freedom to make those plays on the ice and there’s good ‘D’ in this league that do a good job of defending me at times.”
And it’s certainly not going to prevent him from making plays in the future.
“I mean, everyone’s been there before,” said Gaudreau who, heading into Friday’s action, was sitting fourth in league scoring with 13 goals and 26 assists and was tied with Connor McDavid with 39 points.
“I just have to be a little harder on the stick and make the play. If you can’t make the play, you’re not going to do those types of things in those situations.”
POWER PLAY PRACTICE
With their special teams still struggling, the Flames spent most of Friday’s practice at the Stampede Corral working on the power play. The man advantage has scored three goals in 11 games since losing Kris Versteeg to a hip injury and hasn’t connected in four straight games, going 0-for-14 in that recent stretch.
“If you look at our last five games, our five-on-five chances, we’ve created 64 and we’ve given up 45. So, we’re in a good spot there,” Gulutzan said. “But our chances on the power play are 14-7. That’s not good enough what we’re giving up there. Our specialty teams right now aren’t helping us get points.”
JAGR PLAYING/ RITTICH STARTING?
Flames right winger Jaromir Jagr has missed the last five games with a lower body injury but had skated with the team during Wednesday and Friday’s practices.
“Now he’s had two good skates,” Gulutzan said. “I didn’t talk with him after he got off the ice but he just said he feels good so we’ll see where he’s at conditioning-wise (Saturday).”
Given the team’s weekend schedule — back-to-back games against Nashville and Vancouver (Sunday) — Gulutzan also added that David Rittich is going to play at some point and could potentially start Saturday’s game against the Nashville Predators.
I get the freedom to make those types of plays. But I need to be smarter at times and manage the clock a little better.