CALGARY — A couple days ago, Sean Monahan was on the ice and a very close witness and participant in a Johnny Gaudreau show—the man they call Johnny Hockey scored a hat-trick, and against the Western Conference-leading Winnipeg Jets, no less.
But on Saturday night, Monahan, the Calgary Flames centreman, hit us with a slightly different reality.
"It’s hockey," he said, straight-faced, after a 3-2 overtime loss against the visiting Vancouver Canucks. "It’s not easy to score."
Well, it sure wasn’t for Calgary on Saturday—unless you count when they were short-handed. Yes, though the Flames dominated parts of the game, and specifically the start of the second period when it looked like Vancouver was short-handed (they weren’t!), Calgary could only light the lamp while a man down.
How do you explain that?
"I don’t know," Monahan said. "Obviously the PK’s doing a great job."
Well, true, and had Calgary won the penalty kill would’ve been the story of the game for these Flames. Coming off a 4-1 win over Winnipeg, they did escape Saturday with a single point, but it wasn’t much solace. And you really couldn’t tell by the straight faces in the dressing room that the Flames are now tied atop the Western Conference standings, though the Jets have a game in hand.
"Better than nothing," goalie David Rittich said, of the single point. "We should get two today, but better than nothing."
That’s the spirit.
Vancouver’s first goal came from one of its usual suspects, when Brock Boeser wristed one past Rittich on the power play. The Flames answered back not long after that in the second, when Mark Jankowski scored his fourth short-handed goal of the season (he leads the league) and sixth in all. Cue the blasts of flames from the jumbotron.
The Flames thought they’d made it 2-1 shortly after that, and would’ve were it not for an early whistle—the refs thought massive Vancouver goalie Jacob Markstrom (he’s six-foot-six) had control of the puck, but it popped out and Mikal Backlund hammered it home and even celebrated while the Saddledome went bananas. But the goal was called off because of the earlier whistle.
"They’re the best refs in the world, obviously," said Flames defender Travis Hamonic. "You’re not gonna agree with all the calls, or a big chunk of them. That’s something you just gotta fight through — there’s two teams out there probably complaining about the refs and things like that, so you’re gonna be on the good side of some calls and you’re gonna be on the bad side, and that’s the nature of the season and how it goes — but they’ve certainly got a tough job and they’re trying to do their best."
It was Hamonic who gave the Flames a real lead, about halfway through the second. He scored with two seconds left on a Canucks power play, leading an odd-man rush and finding the far corner. Then the DJ hit it with MC Hammer’s beauty, Can’t Touch this, for the guy teammates call Hammer. A nice touch. And, of course, more fire flames blasted.
But the party was short-lived. Though the Flames had a whack of chances in the second, then in came—you probably guessed it—Elias Pettersson, to spoil the party. The Swedish rookie sensation tore down his off-wing and absolutely lasered one into the far corner. It hit the mesh and popped out so fast that you wondered whether it went in, but then you know it did, because… Pettersson.
Rittich called it a "pretty good shot," which is a pretty good understatement.
And so while Calgary earned a point on the heels of a win over the Jets, following a tear of wins in early December, the end of the month has been far less spectacular. The win over Winnipeg snapped a three-game losing streak.
The good news is, the Flames have a chance to end 2018 on a winning note, with a New Year’s Eve bash planned back at the Saddledome against San Jose, and if you ask coach Bill Peters, they’ll be ringing in 2019 on the heels of a good performance.
"I think our start was very good," he said, of Saturday. "…We skated much better tonight than we did in Winnipeg, and I expect us to skate a lot better Monday, too."
If the Flames do that, then maybe hockey won’t be so hard, and the goals so hard to come by, either.
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