It wasn’t all bad. It was all boring, though. I’m not really sure that we should’ve expected more from a Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames matchup because they’re usually boring and low scoring. Tonight was no different.
In the first period, the Kings came out looking… well… Like they didn’t care. It was pretty even until Jiri Hudler made Jake Muzzin look very silly. Muzzin tried to pressure Hudler into the corner but Hudler found a streaking Curtis Glencross all alone in the slot. Jordan Nolan got caught puck watching. I’m not sure if there’s any other explanation for it.
(There’s no sound on the video.)
1-0 Calgary.
About a minute later, Johnny Gaudreau deked around Matt Greene and just completely turnstiled him. Alec Martinez went down to block the pass but committed just about half a second too early. Dwight King over skated the puck then fell down and Greene ran into his own goaltender, completely taking him out of the play and giving Markus Granlund a wide open net. Someone needs to put that on video and set it to Benny Hill because it was so ridiculous.
2-0 Calgary with almost 7 minutes left to play in the first period.
The Kings were better in the second period, but they still mostly looked like poop. Most of their shots were from the outside, into legs or just completely missed the net altogether. With less than a minute remaining in the second period, Trevor Lewis pulled the puck off the boards in his own zone and found Dustin Brown in the neutral zone who hit a streaking Tyler Toffoli. Toffoli backhanded the puck over Jonas Hiller’s glove, halving the deficit.
Toffoli had two glorious chances to even the score but couldn’t beat Hiller’s right pad.
Shots attempts were 29-7 in that period, per Sheng Peng. Nope, not a typo. Only 10 of those attempts were actually on goal.
In the third period, LA mostly controlled the play and looked like they were going to have a chance to possibly tie the game. But then Jarret Stoll took a penalty with just under 4 minutes remaining. Damn it, Stoll.
A critical o-zone faceoff came for LA with just a few seconds left in the game. Jonathan Quick pulled for the extra attacker, Darryl Sutter has King on the ice with Jeff Carter, Toffoli and Tanner Pearson. King almost gets the rebound but stuffs it right back into Hiller’s pads then can’t control the rebound and the game is over.
Flames win 2-1.
The final corsi numbers were 67% for LA, 33% for Calgary. The second period was heavily score affected but Calgary just had a hope and a prayer and hung on for dear life.
Let’s be real here, though — LA could’ve been way better. The Flames blocked 26 shots in all situations — that’s 37%!! On top of that, LA missed 23% (16 shots) of their attempts. So all told, only about 40% of their shots actually made it on net.
(stick tap war-on-ice for all their beautiful, fancy charts)
It would’ve been nice to get even a point but 62 horrible seconds lost them even that. No crying, though. Gotta focus on Edmonton tonight! If they get more than 40% of their shots through, they may actually win.