The Calgary Flames played their eighth game of the season at home against the Montreal Canadiens last night. They finished the game with a final score of 2-1 in overtime, with a standout performance by Dustin Wolf. Here are three takeaways from last night’s game.
Flames Have Major Trouble Generating Dangerous Offence
Looking at the scoresheet for last night’s game, it might seem like a strongly one-sided “goalie-ing” by Montreal Canadiens backup Jakub Dobes on the Flames. Dobes finished the game with only one goal against after facing 37 shots, giving him a save percentage of .973, a stellar mark. However, the shots on goal metric is deceiving. Almost none of Calgary’s shots were threatening in any way, mostly coming from defencemen softly banking it on Dobes from the point (17 of Calgary’s shots were from defencemen) or from forwards a long way away from Dobes with no significant pre-shot movement or traffic in front.
Related: Calgary Flames Carrying Over Glaring Issues From Last Season
The Flames are not a strong offensive roster – they made very little turnover from last season, where they were one of the least offensively dynamic teams in the league despite finishing barely out of a playoff spot, and this season, they are currently last in the league in goals-for. This game was an excellent demonstration of that. Even if they manage to generate offensive volume, they completely lack creativity or the ability to make plays dangerous.
One of only a handful of exceptions to that was Adam Klapka’s goal in the third period, their only tally of the night. Morgan Frost followed the Canadiens as they regrouped in their own offensive zone, a routine play. He went for a stick move on the Canadiens’ defenceman and, luckily, managed a successful takeaway. Klapka, entering the zone to join in on his teammates’ pestering, stole the puck and ended up with a partial breakaway, which he used to beat Dobes clean. At no other point in the night did any Flame possess anything close to a one-on-one with the goaltender; it was for this reason that he had little trouble keeping all of the other shots out of the net.
Someone Other Than MacKenzie Weegar Should Be Quarterbacking The Power Play
One of the Flames’ biggest weaknesses is their lack of offensive production, and a microcosm of that is their power play, which has stood at an abysmal 14.8% (4 for 27) through their eight games. Their power play has created nearly a third of their total offence so far this season; it’s still fourth-worst in the NHL.
One of the bigger reasons for this is the presence of MacKenzie Weegar as quarterback. While Weegar was a serviceable quarterback last season, so far this season, he has demonstrated a step back in his abilities – he often lets the puck creep across the blue line, rarely distributes it to a player with a good shooting lane, and often takes too many ineffective shots himself. If head coach Ryan Huska intends to make any sort of change to try and inject some offence into the lineup, putting someone else in charge of the first unit might help.
There are two clear candidates for this. The first is Rasmus Andersson, who has quarterbacked power plays in the past; the second is Zayne Parekh, the Flames’ youngest and one of its most dynamic players. Huska does not seem to trust Parekh at all, playing him just 12:42 this game, and with only three shifts after the game was tied. However, he is their best prospect and is ideally the future of the team’s blue line and power play, which means he should be learning to run an NHL power play at some point – why not now?
Dustin Wolf’s Sophomore Slump Isn’t The Whole Story
After putting together a Calder-worthy season last year, Dustin Wolf has been struggling a lot so far this season, with an .875 save percentage and a 3.91 goals-against average, compared to a .903 and 2.82, respectively, last season. This slump has been one of the biggest reasons for the Flames’ continued losses – their skating group has not changed that much, and while they’ve been abysmal shooters, the other end of the rink leaves something to be desired as well.
Last night, Wolf was the Flames’ best performer by far and handled many more dangerous shots than Calgary generated. He faced multiple partial breaks exactly like the one that Klapka scored on and stopped them all.
Wolf is still a young goalie and has work to do before he reaches the ceiling that might still be above him – goalies are also unpredictable, and even the best ones will have a season that brings them seemingly down to earth. It doesn’t help that the Flames’ defence is prone to letting younger, faster teams behind them and that their offence is not good enough to give him much support.
What’s Next For The Flames?
The Flames put up a good effort on paper, but failed to break through once again. After this game, their record is now 1-6-1, in second-last place in the Pacific Division, above only the winless San Jose Sharks. Their next game is on Friday, Oct. 24, against the Winnipeg Jets, where they will attempt to break their seven-game losing streak.
