Compared to their last meeting just a few weeks ago, the Calgary Flames and Minnesota Wild traded goals in a wild night. 11 total goals were scored, including three in the shootout, and despite fighting it for large portions of the night, it was David Rittich who came away victorious in his 100th NHL game. The Flames battled back from four separate one goal deficits in the game, plus going down 1-0 in the shootout to finally break through and win it in front of their dads.

Statistical Breakdown

5v5 SVA CF% SCF% HDCF% xGF% 52.8 45.4 64.2 55.4 47.2 54.6 35.8 44.6

Team Stats

5v5 Player Stats

Calgary Flames

Derek Ryan led the Flames with 66.7% CF

Only three Flames finished below the 50% CF mark: Rasmus Andersson, Mark Jankowski, and Michael Stone

Travis Hamonic was on the ice for a whopping nine HDCF

Minnesota Wild

Jordan Greenway led the Wild with 55.9% CF

Only four Wild players finished above the 50% CF mark

Ryan Donato was the only player in the game to be on the ice for fewer than 10 CF events

Stats courtesy: Natural Stat Trick

Thoughts on the Game

The Flames are undefeated in 2020. This was their second straight win, in Rittich’s 100th NHL game, on the road for their annual dads’ trip, and came in a seven round shootout.

It’s crazy to think about how awful the Flames were in shootouts coming into the 2019-20 season, and how dramatically that statistic has changed this year. They’re now 4-0, and despite the usual suspects in Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk, and Elias Lindholm not scoring in the skills competition, Derek Ryan and Dillon Dube came up big for the Flames and beat Stalock to seal the win for the Flames. Big ups to Dube especially who scored in his first ever NHL shootout and oh boy was that goal pretty.

You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger Big Save Dave fan, but he’s really going through a rut right now. Cam Talbot has outperformed him the past several weeks it seems, and we might be seeing his crazy workload catching up to him. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Talbot get a larger share of the starts moving forward, at least until Rittich is back to his usual big saving self. He did show tremendous resilience last night though, battling through giving up the lead four times, and then stopping six of seven Wild shots in the shootout. He’s still a great goalie, maybe he just needs some rest. Thankfully the all-star game is coming up and that should go a long way.

The Flames never led in last night’s contest. It’s no longer a trend, but a theme of the year at this point. The Flames have trailed for around 40% of their games this year, which is simply too much to have any hope of being a dangerous, winning team each and every night. They’re improving, no doubt about that, but there are sitll a lot of bad habits that need to be cleaned up.

Hopefully they can keep the win streak going against the Blackhawks tomorrow night.

The Gaud, the Bad, and the Beautiful

Good: The Flames showed incredible resiliency coming back from four one-goal deficits to eventually win it in the shootout.

Bad: Giving up four one-goal deficits, as well as three in the first period.

Beautiful: Rittich using the aggressive goalie technique on most of the Wild’s shootout attempts. That man is simply wonderful.

Next Game

Opponent: Chicago Blackhawks

Record: 18-18-6

Standings: 7th in the Central Division

Season Series: 0-1-0

Photo by: Hannah Foslien/ Getty Images