These Calgary Flames absolutely refuse to go gently into the night. Read More
These Calgary Flames absolutely refuse to go gently into the night. Even when you think it might finally be time to declare them done and dusted, they find a way to fight another day. They definitely don’t do it the easy way, though. There were moments on Monday night when it felt like the jig
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These Calgary Flames absolutely refuse to go gently into the night.
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Even when you think it might finally be time to declare them done and dusted, they find a way to fight another day.
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They definitely don’t do it the easy way, though.
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There were moments on Monday night when it felt like the jig might finally be up. Two uninspired periods against the San Jose Sharks (20-47-10) had the Flames (37-27-13) trailing midway through the third and looking like they were out of ideas.
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Then, in an instant, it all changed.
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Adam Klapka buried a rebound on a two-on-one. The big Czech winger drew a penalty shortly after his big goal, and Jonathan Huberdeau scored on the power-play. A few minutes later, Matt Coronato capitalized on a turnover to secure the desperately-needed 3-2 win.
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“Pesky Flames,” Frost said to reporters post-game. “It seems like we’re always coming back.”
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The Flames would prefer if they didn’t have to mount late comebacks as much as they’ve had to recently, but at this point in the season they’ll take the wins however they can get them.
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And if there was ever a time to play desperate hockey, surely it was Monday night. The win moved the Flames back to within four points of the Minnesota Wild in the race for the Westen Conference’s final playoff spot.
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The Wild have four games left on their regular season and the Flames have five, although a head-to-head matchup between the teams on Friday means there’s still an opportunity for the Calgary crew to pull off the unlikely and book a ticket to the post-season dance.
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They just can’t afford to be dropping points to the Sharks, who are the worst team in the NHL this season.
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The Flames’ third period heroics kept their playoff hopes alive, but – as we’ll get into in the takeaways below – they’re going to need to be better early in games if they’re going to be playing beyond their regular season finale on April 17.
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“Finding a way to win was important, it allows us to stay in it,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska told reporters. “Now, we move on.”
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Here’s three takeaways from Monday’s win:
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- AS GOOD AS IT GETS
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Without Dustin Wolf, the Flames wouldn’t have had a chance to salvage two points on Monday night. He finished the game having stopped 29-of-31 shots, but as is often the case with Wolf, that only tells part of the story.
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There is no metric by which you could say the Flames played well in the first period. They were out-shot by an 18-to-8 margin and the Sharks had a number of Grade A chances.
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And Wolf turned them all away until Will Smith scored the first of his two goals in the final minute of the frame.