2 weeks Ago By Calgary Herald
For nearly 57 minutes, Dustin Wolf and the Calgary Flames had silenced the NHL’s leading lamp-lighter. And then, with 3:12 remaining in regulation, Leon Draisaitl sniped his 50th of the season. During the sudden-death session, the Edmonton Oilers ’ second-fiddle superstar scored No.
51. In what was a speedy, scrappy, tight-checking and hard-hitting edition of the Battle of Alberta, the Flames settled for a single point in Saturday’s 3-2 overtime defeat to their neighbours and rivals. Draisaitl, ultimately, was the hero for the hosts at Rogers Place.
In his return from a four-game injury absence, the Rocket Richard Trophy shoo-in made it easy to forget that Connor McDavid is still sidelined. As Flames captain Mikael Backlund put it: “He made some good plays, and that was unfortunately the difference tonight.” Draisaitl finished with two goals on eight shots on net.
After Wolf had stopped six straight, including a pair of dangerous attempts on odd-man rushes, Leon had the last laugh, both of his buries coming on low sizzlers on the blocker side. “If you allow him to shoot the puck as much as he did tonight, eventually he’s going to break through and score,” Flames coach Ryan Huska told reporters in Edmonton. “I don’t think we did a good enough job against him tonight.
” Brayden Pachal was Saturday’s surprise offensive contributor with a goal and an assist, while Yegor Sharangovich had Calgary’s other marker and Nazem Kadri picked up a pair of helpers. The Flames are now seven points out of the wild-card slots in the Western Conference with 10 dates left on their schedule. They will continue a three-game road-trip with Monday’s matchup with the Avalanche in Colorado.
Here are three takeaways from the showdown with the Oilers, but first our best wishes to the spectator who needed medical attention shortly after the opening faceoff ...
‘WE KIND OF BLEW IT’ So close to being able to brag about his first career game-winner, Brayden Pachal was instead left trying to explain how the Flames had allowed a late lead to slip away. It was probably Morgan Frost who should have been doing the ’splaining. On Draisaitl’s tying tally, he was guilty of a turnover at the offensive blue-line.
“We kind of blew it at the end there,” said Pachal, the third-pairing defenceman who potted his third goal of this season Saturday. “We played pretty well for 55 or 56 minutes. But moral victories don’t matter right now.
We came here for the two points, and we didn’t get it.” Huska was lukewarm on the performance in Edmonton, something he made clear when asked about why things had unfurled in the final frame. “It was a little bit like the whole game for me — there was parts that we did like, there was other parts that I thought we sat back and just didn’t have that assertiveness or that killer instinct that I thought we needed tonight,” Huska replied.
“So it’s a tougher one. But as we’ve said over the last little while, you have to quickly turn the page and move on and get ready for our next one.” They really have no choice.
They were adamant they deserved a better fate in Thursday’s home loss to the Dallas Stars. They believed they were the better of the two teams again Saturday. “You can’t get discouraged.
I think that’s encouraging more than anything,” said Kadri after adding another milestone puck — this one for 700 career points — to his collection. “I mean, that’s the funny thing about hockey. Sometimes you play great and you lose.
And sometimes you don’t play so great and win. We continue to repeat that, I think I like our chances.” SOMETHING TO BUILD ON? Sharangovich has scored two goals in the month of March.
Both came in his first outing back from a healthy-scratching. The Flames can’t afford to turn him into a half-timer, hoping to alternate the sit-outs and the I’ll-show-yous, so they need more consistency from the man they call ’Sharky.’ With Connor Zary officially out week-to-week with a lower-body injury, they need it right now.
To Sharangovich’s credit, Saturday was a solid start. There was some desperation in his game, a hint of determination to get closer to the sort of impact that he had in 2023-24, when he was Calgary’s leading marksman with 31 goals. The 26-year-old lefty had to hustle to be in the right spot to bury Kadri’s rebound on an early rush, cashing in for his 13th of this season.
While it won’t show up on the highlight reel, there was another sequence that his bosses will appreciate just as much. In the late stages of the first, Sharangovich filled the shooting lane to dead-end a slapper from Oilers defenceman Ty Emberson. On that same shift, he was rocked by Emberson along the boards, but only because he’d refused to bail out on a clearing attempt.
It was a textbook example of what coaches talk about so often — taking a hit to make a play. This was a solid showing from Sharangovich, with Huska agreeing “he was better for us tonight.” Now, can he do it again Monday? LET’S GET WILD In this sprint to the finish, the Flames must feel like they’re trying to chase down Usain Bolt.
The eighth-place St. Louis Blues have thrown it into turbo and aren’t showing any signs of slowing down. Thanks to Saturday’s 2-1 triumph in Colorado, they have now won nine in a row, the second-longest spree in the NHL this season.
(It is bettered by only an 11-game run by the Winnipeg Jets from Jan. 22 to Feb. 26.
) That explains why many Flames fans have turned their attention to the Minnesota Wild — and it’s not bad thinking. The Flames currently trail both the Blues and Wild by seven points. They have three games in hand on the crew from St.
Loo and two on the men from Minny. To reel either in, they will now need some help on the out-of-town scoreboard. What makes the Wild seem the most catchable? They’ve been a mixed bag in March, with a 7-6-1 record, and dropped three of four this week.
They’re also without a pair of key forwards in Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson-Ek, although both are back on blades. The Flames and Wild will go head-to-head at the Saddledome on April 11. It could be a biggie.
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