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Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Totally disagree. The Flames had nothing going on in that game until Mangiapane scored. Nothing outside of a couple of really good shifts from the 3M line. Defensively they weren't bad but their passing was atrocious and the first line was invisible. I was at that game and there's no way you can convince me the Flames were the the better team for the first two periods of that game. Agreed on the 3rd period but IMO that's the only period of this series the Flames were clearly better. Sometimes goaltenders steal games in the playoffs. Flames fans don't need to apologize for this or pretend they were the better team on a night they clearly weren't.
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To say they had nothing going is a bit much. The first period of game 1 was definitely hard to watch, with terrible execution at all ends of the ice. However, the second and third periods were a different story. The team started finding their legs and took the game over from that point on. They looked every bit the part of the #1 seed they are. I saw glimpses of this on Saturday as well, but it was just too few and far in between to amount to enough.
The concerning aspect is that the team has started two home games very poorly and hasn't dominated possession as you'd expect against low playoff seed. Losing last change is a definite concern for me tonight as our preferred match ups haven't even resulted in much in that regard. They are, thus far winning the special teams battle though, which tends to be a big contributor to success in the playoffs. So long as they keep that going in Colorado, they should be in good shape to get back in control.
Tonight is exactly where a player like Monahan needs to step up and show that he's a top line, elite player that can hang with the stars of this league in order for the Flames to take this series back. He'll be seeing a hefty dose of Mackinnon for sure and playing the way he has, which is ok, will simply not be good enough.