‘It was a brutal game’: Flames clobbered by Canucks in penultimate pre-season contest

Standing in the home locker room following an 8-1 pre-season loss to the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames captain Mikael Backlund offered a pretty blunt assessment of his team’s performance.

“It was a brutal game.”

The Flames allowed a breakaway goal to Brock Boeser 6:59 into the first period. That was followed by a sequence of shifts that saw the Canucks score a trio of goals in a span of just one minute and 18 seconds – one goal apiece scored at even strength, the power play and shorthanded – to let the game completely slip away.

“Came out with some energy and then after the first eight to 10 minutes we started doing too much,” said Backlund. “We gave away the game right there and then our habits got worse and worse.”

Blueliner MacKenzie Weegar had a similar assessment of the loss.

“Not too many good things.” said Weegar. “It was tough. The start, you know, first 10 minutes was good. And then I felt like after a TV timeout or whatever the case may be, the tide started. And then it was like all momentum shifted and odd men rushes, guys behind us. It was just disconnected.”

Weegar explained that he didn’t think the group was working hard in doing the “little things” against the Canucks.

“It’s just, you know, go get the puck for your partner, set them up for success,” said Weegar. “You know, go kill a play in the corner to set your partner or set the next line up for success. You know, outwork their D, you know, get cutoffs for your D, man. Just little things like that. It’s just that’s the hardworking stuff, the stuff that kind of goes unnoticed. They did that to us.”

Overall, the Flames were out-scored in every game situation: 4-1 at even strength, 2-0 on their own power plays and 2-0 on Vancouver’s power plays. Winger Joel Farabee had the lone Flames goal. Farabee was cited by head coach Ryan Huska, along with Connor Zary and Martin Pospisil.

The big story heading into the game was the competition to be Dustin Wolf’s backup, with Huska noting prior to the game his intention to have Ivan Prosvetov and Devin Cooley split the duties against Vancouver. While the score obviously didn’t flatter either goaltender, it was noted (frequently) post-game that it was tough to hang the outcome on the guys tending the blue paint.

“We didn’t help them at all,” said Backlund. “We didn’t play good enough. So that’s not on them.”

Prosvetov allowed five goals on 19 shots, while Cooley allowed three goals on seven shots.

“To me, it was a tough one for both of those guys because of what we did in front of them,” said Huska. “So it was a tough one to evaluate. It’s almost a little bit unfair in that regard, playing. I don’t think the people in front of them did what they needed to do to give them a chance.”

After remaining injury-free to this point of training camp, the bigger story post-game was the premature exits of a pair of Flames forwards. Martin Pospisil left the game 9:04 into the second period after getting bloodied during a scrum. Jonathan Huberdeau left the game after crashing into Canucks netminder Kevin Lankinen late in the third period. Neither player returned to the game. Huska had no updates on either player following the game.

The Flames close out their exhibition schedule on Friday night at home against the Winnipeg Jets. Everyone in red will be hoping for a better effort, and result, against the Jets.