Instant Reaction: Flames drop exhibition home-opener to Edmonton

Welcome to Instant Reaction, where we give you our instant reaction to tonight’s Calgary Flames game and ask our readers to do the same in the comments section below!

The Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers played twice on Sunday night. In the Calgary portion of their split-squad home-and-home set, the Flames were shut out by the Oilers by a 3-0 score.

The rundown

Both teams looked a bit rusty in the opening 20 minutes, with quality scoring chances few and far between. But the Oilers cashed in on their initial strong chance to grab an early lead.

2:38 into the first period, Ike Howard sent a pass to Kasperi Kapanen to send his teammate in alone on Devin Cooley. Cooley seemed to have gloved the puck, but it trickled through him and over the goal line to give the visitors a 1-0 lead. (MacKenzie Weegar was caught up ice on a pinch and Connor Zary couldn’t catch up to Kapanen on the sequence.)

The Flames looked a bit better in the second period, generating more puck possession, but they couldn’t translate that into quality scoring chances.

The Oilers pulled away in the third period with a pair of goals. Connor Clattenburg took advantage of an errant Matvei Gridin pass and beat Cooley to make it 2-0. Riley Stillman added some insurance a few minutes later with a screened shot to make it 3-0 for the visitors, and that’s how the proceedings ended.

How did they look?

The Flames were okay. The shape of their game got better as things went along – they looked more like we would expect the Flames to – but the details of their game weren’t all that good. Errant passes, missed coverage, and timing being a bit off on passing and skating sequences were fairly common. In short: they were rusty. If you’re looking for silver linings, their penalty kill looked halfway decent – granted, it was their A-team against a Condors-heavy Oilers power play group.

A few players made some nice plays. Nick Cicek stood out with some smart physical defensive play, and he fought Clattenburg, too. Some of the kids had some nice sequences, such as flashes of strong play from Zayne Parekh and Matvei Gridin here and there. But overall, they were merely okay against a team that, on paper, they had a big edge over.

This and that

Flames lineup:

Gridin – Kadri – Coronato
Zary – Backlund – Coleman
Honzek – Kirkland – Stromgren
Suniev – Morton – Basha

Cicek- Andersson
Hanley – Weegar
Bean – Parekh

Devin Cooley started for the Flames, backed up by Owen Say. Cooley played the full game.

Edmonton lineup (via Jason Gregor):

Howard – Lazar – Kapanen
Jones – Philp – Jarventie
Pitlick – Samanski – Hutson
Clattenburg – Lewandowski – Grubbe

Kulak – Emberson
Leppanen – Brown
Stillman – Akey

Samuel Jonsson started for the Oilers, backed up by Nathaniel Day. Day entered in relief midway through the game.

Up next

The Flames are back in scintillating pre-season game action on Tuesday night when they host the Seattle Kraken at the Saddledome.