The game changer wasn't Kassian getting thrown out. It was David Rittich. If not for him, that game would have been out of reach, and I think his stellar play and infectious enthusiasm rubbed off on his teammates.
The Flames definitely got sucked into the goonery during the first half of the game, and it threw them out of sync because that's not really their style of play outside of guys like Chucky and Bennett. But once they settled down and started skating, forechecking, and putting pucks on net, the Oilers had no answer. They even tried putting their goons onto their top two lines, and it still didn't work for them. There were a couple of amazing shifts in the 3rd where the Flames hemmed them in for what seemed like minutes while looking like the Harlem Globetrotters.
You think the Flames are gonna be scared of these clowns the next time they play? Not a chance. Tkachuk is firmly in the Oilers' heads now, and the Flames know that the answer to beating them is to simply out-skate and out-work them. The only game plan the Oilers seem to have for us is to try and goon it up, and I'm sure they'll try more shenanigans the next time we play them. As long as the Flames ignore most of that crap and just move their feet like they did in the 2nd half of that game, we'll be just fine.
Also, how good was the Backlund line against McDavid. Yeah, he scored on the 2 on 1, but he was completely neutralized for the rest of that game, and I loved how Backs got in his face. That's a huge positive going forward.
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