Discipline once again the Flames’ undoing in Game 1 loss to Anaheim

WES GILBERTSON

Lance Bouma, dinged for goaltender interference on a boneheaded bump, was parked in the penalty box late in the middle stanza when Jakob Silfverberg wired a wrister for Anaheim’s second power-play salvo of the night and the would-be winner.

Calgary’s other rule breakers — Sam Bennett for holding, Deryk Engelland for tripping and Kris Versteeg for slashing — served their full two-minute sentences.

(The Flames not only lost the special-teams battle, but they surrendered the game-tying, momentum-turning tally on another sort of short-handed situation with the hosts capitalizing on a threeman breakaway after an awful line change by their guests.)

“It can get painful there when you’re in the box all game,” said alternate captain Sean Monahan, who scored Calgary’s lone powerplay goal on five opportunities in Game 1. “If we’re going to take a penalty, it has to be a smart one. Sometimes you’ve gotta take one. Sometimes it doesn’t go your way. But seven is way too many.”

Of course, they already knew that.

On five separate nights during the regular season, the Flames found themselves short-handed six times. They beat the Colorado Avalanche that way, but that recipe won’t work unless you’re facing a doormat.

Their most mischievous outing was way back on Oct. 20, when they racked up eight minors — and allowed two goals as the penalty killers tried to post bail — in a loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

That can’t happen in the postseason.

And since it’s too late now, it absolutely can’t happen again.

“One of things that we did to correct it early is we made it a point of emphasis, but we did it in a way that the players themselves recognized this needed to change in order for them to make the playoffs,” Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan said Friday. “Once it was spelled out in those terms, the players did a lot better job of containing themselves.

“I see this series, and I told our players this morning, a little bit at a micro level the way our season has gone. We had to clean up some things early. There are some things that are going to stand in our way if we would like to carry on in these playoffs, so we have to make sure we nip those in the bud. Discipline is one of those areas.”