Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
I disagree on that point. In the third period they stopped using the agressive forechecking that gave the Flames so much success in the first two periods. For whatever reason they chose to stop playing that and decided to play a more defensive style to protect the lead. Dump in pucks and peel back.
|
Not exactly. This was not entirely within the Flames control because they were not carrying the puck as often. The more frequent zone clears and reduction of forechecking is a product of chasing the other team in your zone, which is what happened in the third period. It happened because the Wild are a good team who can control the play for extended periods of time.
My point is that when two good teams are playing one of them is never going to dominate the play from wire-to-wire. There will be significant ebbs and flows, and Minnesota’s urgency in the third had a huge effect on making it much more difficult for the Flames to maintain their forecheck.