The Calgary Flames and Los Angeles Kings played a game on Tuesday night that was a bit of a grind for the first half. Not a ton happened, but both teams sure did try to make things happen. In the back half, things started to happen, and the Flames were the team that executed better with the puck.
As a result, the Flames managed to scrape their way to a 4-2 victory over the Kings to extend their winning streak to four games.
The rundown
The opening period featured zero goals, as both teams tended to make a couple good passes and then have momentum disrupted by the other team. The Flames had a couple good looks on their power plays, but otherwise this was a low-event period.
First period shots were 10-3 Flames (7-3 Flames at five-on-five) and, via Natural Stat Trick, five-on-five scoring chances were 6-1 Flames (high-dangers were 4-1 Flames).
The second period was similarly quiet, until a flurry of offence midway through, featuring three goals scored in under two minutes.
Phillip Danault opened the scoring with 7:52 remaining in the period off a rush play. The Kings skated up ice, entered the Flames’ zone, and Danault leaned into a shot from the top of the face-off circles that beat Jacob Markstrom to give the Kings a 1-0 lead.
But on the very next shift, the Flames answered back. Noah Hanifin used a really quick pass through the neutral zone to spring Andrew Mangiapane on a partial breakaway. Mangiapane went in, made a nifty deke on Cam Talbot, and tucked the puck behind the Kings’ netminder to tie the game at 1-1.
Just after that, the Flames got a big save from Markstrom at one end, which led to a rush the other way. Dryden Hunt carried the puck into the neutral zone and one-handed it into the offensive zone while fending off a Kings player. The Flames chased down the puck afterwards and cycled it around, leading to Blake Coleman firing the puck from the slot past Talbot to give the red team a 2-1 lead.
But as the clock began to wind down, the Kings drew even. Off the rush, Anze Kopitar’s initial shot was stopped by Markstrom. Rasmus Andersson steered an attacker away from the loose puck, but Kevin Fiala beat Yegor Sharangovich to the puck and fired it past Markstrom to tie the game up at 2-2.
Second period shots were 13-7 Flames (all five-on-five) and five-on-five scoring chances were 7-5 Flames (high-dangers were 4-3 Kings).
The third period was pretty back and forth.
The Flames grabbed a lead in the waning minutes of regulation. Hunt threw the puck off the side boards to Sharangovich, who led the rush into the Kings zone. He fired the puck past Jordan Spence and beat Talbot to give the Flames a 3-2 lead.
The Kings got a late power play but couldn’t capitalize. With Talbot on the bench for the extra attacker, Mikael Backlund fired the puck into the open net to give the Flames a 4-2 lead.
The Flames held on for the victory.
Why the Flames won
The Flames played a pretty patient, structured game. They couldn’t quite execute offensively in the first half of the game, but they gradually found their swagger and managed to hold the Kings at bay.
Red Warrior
Let’s give this one to the pairing of Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev. They were each plus-3 and each of them made a ton of key plays in their own end to keep this game favouring the red team.
Turning point
Sharangovich’s game-deciding goal in the third period was the tipping point in this one.
This and that
Sportsnet’s cameras caught a pretty cool moment before the game.
Up next
The Flames (29-25-5) are back at it on Saturday night when they raise Miikka Kiprusoff’s #34 to the rafters, then host the Pittsburgh Penguins.
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