I didn't get to see the whole game but from what I did see I just don't understand the meltdown. I missed most of the first so I get that there was another slow Flames start but I thought they showed a lot of resiliency to keep battling back and staying in the game. There was some pretty atrocious officiating, the Jankowski/Fleury getting offsetting minors and then Tkachuk getting 2 mins for a stick lift just didn't make any sense. Combined with the missed calls Vegas was getting this was an uphill battle against one of (the?) best home teams in the league, some pretty sub-par goaltending and sketchy officiating.
The offside call is the rule, but they seriously need to make some changes to it, it is as ridiculous as the toe in the crease rule of 98/99. Seriously? 30 seconds later they score and it gets called back? Imagine if that standard applied to goaltender interference.
All in all, didn't expect to win this one. Score was run up by a deflating call-back on the tying goal. Tough few games but against two top teams in the league and one of the hottest currently, all with the backup, isn't really telling me anything I didn't already know about the Flames.
Mentality fragile, missing scoring depth and a bubble 95-100 point team. Nothing has really changed that with a minor 3 game skid. This isn't a contender, and I really can't say they are more talented or play that much better than any team they are behind right now. Hammer a couple wins out and they are right back to where they belong.
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@PR_NHL
The @NHLFlames are the first team to feature four players each with 50+ points within their first 45 games of a season since the Penguins in 1995-96 (Ron Francis, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Tomas Sandstrom).
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