Instant Reaction: Golden Knights seize victory from the Flames

Just shy of five minutes later, the Flames added to their lead. Sam Honzek made a nice play on the forecheck, checking Ivan Barbashev in the corner of the Vegas zone. The puck squirted loose after that hit and was collected by Blake Coleman, who fired the puck past Hill to give the Flames a 2-0 lead.

First period shots were 10-8 Flames. Via Natural Stat Trick, 5v5 scoring chances were 9-7 Flames and high-dangers were 4-3 Flames.

Akira Schmid replaced Adin Hill in Vegas’ net for the second period, which turned out to be a pretty even period of hockey.

Midway through the second period, Vegas got one back. The Flames pressed at one end, but couldn’t capitalize. The puck went the other way, and Jack Eichel made it count. Eichel’s initial rush chance was stopped by Dustin Wolf, but Eichel jammed in his own rebound to cut Calgary’s lead to 2-1.

Second period shots were 12-11 Golden Knights. 5v5 scoring chances were 8-7 Flames and high-dangers were 2-2.

The Golden Knights kept pressing and managed to tie things up about five minutes into the third period. The Flames were hemmed into their own end and couldn’t clear their zone. Eventually, Kaedan Korczak wandered in from the point and plasted a shot from the high slot that beat Wolf to tie the game at 2-2.

A couple minutes later, Vegas took the lead. Eichel grabbed the puck and whooshed around Daniil Miromanov, cutting to the front of the net and tucking the puck past Wolf to give Vegas a 3-2 lead. The Flames appeared to be pondering a challenge but seemed to run out of time.

The Flames couldn’t muster any additional offence. Tomas Hertl added an empty-netter and this game ended as a 4-2 loss.

Why the Flames lost

The Flames were quite good in the first half of this game and Vegas was fairly flat. But the Golden Knights built their game nicely and the Flames seemed to be more and more reactive as the game wore on. Vegas’ forecheck and puck management improved, and their forecheck seemed to make the Flames’ much jumpier and sloppier with the puck in the back half of this game.

And if we’re calling a spade a spade here: if both teams play to the full capabilities of their roster, Vegas should be beating the Flames. They under-performed in the first part of this game and then seemed to get back to how they usually look.

Red Warrior

We’ll give a joint award to the Honzek-Backlund-Coleman trio. They produced the Flames’ two goals and were generally quite good.

Turning point

This game slipped away from the Flames in the first eight or so minutes of the third period. They had a lead heading into the third period on home ice. Then they were on their heels for much of the first part of the third and Vegas was able to dictate the game.

This and that

The Flames made some lineup tweaks once more. Daniil Miromanov made his season debut on the second pairing with MacKenzie Weegar, who shifted to the left. Joel Hanley played on the third pairing with Zayne Parekh, while Brayden Pachal was bumped to the press box.

Midway through the first period, Vegas netminder Adin Hill took a shot off his mask from Matt Coronato. His mask then fell off as Rasmus Andersson took a rebound shot. Hill made the save and was on the ice, shaken up, for a bit. He was replaced by Akira Schmid for the second period and wasn’t on the bench for the rest of the game.

After Burner

Join Mike Gould and Ryan Pinder right after the game for After Burner!

Up next

The Flames (1-3-0) are headed to Salt Lake City! They face the Utah Mammoth on Wednesday night.