A BRUINS BRUISING
Flames burn out in 3rd period
BOSTON Their power play struggled, their top line didn’t come through when they needed them to, and against the second-best team in the National Hockey League, the Calgary Flames simply didn’t get it done in a 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins.
This drops the Flames to 29-208 and 3-2-0 on this six-game road trip, which makes one final stop on Thursday in Nashville.
“This is another tough loss, to be honest,” said Flames captain Mark Giordano.
“A couple of games now, the two that we’ve lost on the road, we could have got some points out of them. It was tough because of the breakdowns. It’s 2-2 in the third, a tough play. I could have done a way better job of reading it.
“At the end of the day, they made things happen. (Bergeron) a top player for a reason and he made it happen. It just felt like we were going to get points out of that tonight and it didn’t happen.”
It didn’t happen, though, because Patrice Bergeron — one of the hottest players in the NHL at the moment — scored twice in the third period.
Giordano let Bergeron, who is in the conversation for the Hart Trophy, to get a step on him in the neutral zone during a power play and the 32-year-old snapped a shot past netminder David Rittich, who drops to 5-2-2.
At that point, only 1:15 had elapsed in the third period. Plenty of time, right?
Not when the Flames could barely muster any shots or decent chances in the first half of the frame.
Not when their power play goes 0-for-5 against the third-best penalty kill in the NHL, especially while Bruins pest Brad Marchand was in the penalty box 4:53 into the final frame.
Not when Calgary couldn’t generate high-quality scoring chances.
Sure, they laid out 37 hits on the Bruins, to their 29, but ...
“That’s probably the only thing we did,” said head coach Glen Gulutzan.
Bergeron’s second goal came at the 9:19 mark of the third period, a redirection of Marchand’s shot as the Flames scrambled to find their positions. Prior to that, winger Matthew Tkachuk had taken a bad change on the way back into Calgary’s zone.
Down 4-2, Gulutzan pulled Rittich in the final four minutes.
Boston’s Zdeno Chara sealed it with an empty-net goal with 3:46 left. Game over.
“We didn’t generate a chance in the third,” Gulutzan said. “Not one chance . ... I mean, we weren’t generating a thing.”
Knotted 2-2 into the third period, Bruins did their thing and improved to 8-1-3 when tied in the middle frame and out-shot the Flames 40-30 in the end.
“You know what?” Gulutzan said. “I thought this was a game where your top guys had to come and play, and I thought theirs were a little better than ours tonight.”
Fans hadn’t even filed into their seats before the Bruins set the tone just 28 seconds into Tuesday’s game.
TJ Brodie was beat along the boards by Matt Grzelcyk, who poked the puck to David Backes behind Calgary’s net. Backes fed Riley Nash, who was all alone in front to go five-hole on Rittich.
Responding just 95 seconds later was Garnet Hathaway — playing in front of an entire suite of his friends and family — delivered a timely hit behind the Bruins net on Noel Acciari, which led to a loose puck to Rask’s left side.
Sam Bennett jumped all over the puck and knotted the game 1-1.
Johnny Gaudreau scored at the 9:12 mark, notching his 19th of the campaign, which bumped him back into second in NHL scoring.
In the second period, they only managed two shots on net until Chara took a tripping penalty on Gaudreau with 5:53 remaining and they were able to test Rask a little more.
Instead of capitalizing and pulling ahead 3-1, they allowed the Bruins to knot the score 2-2 with 3:40 remaining.
It was another weak play by Brodie, who flailed his stick at Charlie McAvoy as he skated into Calgary ’s zone with the puck. Undeterred, McAvoy set up a tic-tac-toe play with Tim Schaller, who fed Nash for his second of the night with 3:40 left.
“There were some plays I’d like to take back,” Brodie said. “(It’s frustrating), the fact we were tied going into the third, but you can’t change that now.”
The Flames failed to capitalize on another man advantage with 1:27 left, which was costly, especially because of the nature of the penalty — Schaller took out Rittich in the crease as he did a flyby.
Boston fans, however, felt Rittich had sold the call and started booing the 25-year-old Czech, who as taken over for the injured Mike Smith.
“In the second period, they were the better team. No doubt,” Giordano said.
“I thought in the first, we were really good. But as the game went on, they generated more and more and found a way to win the game.”
Next up? The Nashville Predators on Thursday (6 p.m. MT, Sportsnet West, Sportsnet 960 The Fan) to wrap up this six-game road trip.