Canadiens play role of Grinch
Flames ‘outworked all night’ by visitors in festive flop before the holiday break
Ho, ho … hold on.
The Calgary Flames seemed to check out early for their holiday break, delivering a festive flop in Friday’s 3-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at the Saddledome.
The hosts cashed in twice in the third period to make things interesting, but their last-minute shopping turned out to be too little, too late.
“When we get back, we have to remember this one, because this shouldn’t be the staple of our team, the way we played tonight,” said Flames left winger Matthew Tkachuk.
“We want to be known as a hardworking team. We want to be the team that outworks them. “Tonight, that wasn’t the case.” Byron Froese, who formerly filled the net just up the road on behalf of the Western Hockey League’s Red Deer Rebels, scored once and also notched an assist for the Habs, boosting his career big-league point total from 10 to a dozen.
Micheal Ferland and Tkachuk tallied for the Flames (18-15-3), who hadn’t been outshot during the month of December before being thumped in that stat category Friday — with Mike Smith facing 35 pucks in the home crease and Canadiens superstar Carey Price left to fend off only 23 attempts at the opposite end.
If Rudolph and the rest of Santa’s reindeer are as sluggish as the Flames were on Friday night, the jolly ol’ guy might not finish his rounds until the middle of next week.
“They outworked us all night,” said Calgary’s captain, Mark Giordano.
“They played a good game. They came in with a road mindset, a battle mindset, and we didn’t match it. That’s the bottom line. We just weren’t there tonight for the first two-and-a-half periods. It was their game.
“It’s frustrating after the way we’ve played the last couple weeks here. We’ve played a good game, solid, night in and night out. And we refused to put pucks in tonight and we refused to battle, basically. I guess we thought it was going to be an easy night and we got outworked, and that’s a tough one to swallow.”
They can chase Friday’s defeat with some turkey and stuffing, perhaps even a bit of rum and eggnog.
The Flames will return from their holiday break for a Dec. 28 showdown with the Sharks in San Jose (8:30 p.m., Sportsnet West/ Sportsnet 960 The Fan).
Despite a dreadful performance for most of the night, the Saddledome faithful did have reason to stick in their seats until Friday’s final buzzer.
The Flames finally spoiled Price’s shutout bid just before the midway mark of the third. Michael Frolik’s shot clanked the iron, but Ferland arrived on the doorstep for any easy finish, trimming the deficit to 3-1.
Then, with old pal Paul Byron serving a two-minute sentence for high-sticking, Tkachuk blasted a one-timer after a superb setup by centre Mikael Backlund on the man advantage.
That left 1:53 to tie things up, but the locals couldn’t complete the comeback.
They didn’t deserve the two points anyway.
“I feel like we just didn’t have the puck all night long,” Tkachuk said with a sigh.
“When we got the pucks into their end, it was easy for them to just get out. And it was hard for us to get out of our zone. It just had to do with us just getting outworked — every single player on our team.”
Froese scored on a deflection in Friday’s opening stanza and factored again on a second-period marker. Smith stopped his sharpangle shot, but Nicolas Deslauriers batted the rebound out of midair as he cruised past the crease.
Early in the final frame, Canadiens sparkplug Brendan Gallagher wormed his way between three would- be defenders and buried Artturi Lehkonen’s feed for what would eventually become the game-winner.
“What we wanted to be a trench game, we lost. There’s no system for outworked,” said a bristling Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan.
“Listen, we’ve put together a good string of the games, but the ones that irk you the most are the ones where you get out-battled. That’s tonight. I thought, right from our top guys down, we were out-battled in almost every area.
“Outside of maybe Jankowski’s line,” he added, singling out the trio of Mark Jankowski, Sam Bennett and Garnet Hathaway as guys not guilty of an early getaway.
“I didn’t think anybody else was near where they needed to be.”