It’s Calgary, it’s probably time to say the Darryl Sutter experiment will have to wait until next year. The Flames responded early to their new head coach, but since that early bluster, the Flames have been mediocre.
On Monday night, they were down right lackadaisical in a 5-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets.
Mark Scheifele struck for two goals for Winnipeg.
Connor Hellebuyck made 29 saves in the win.
“I think it’s very important, no matter who we’re playing, to win the series,” Hellebuyck said. “There are a lot of good teams in this division and it’s very tight, and I’m sure everyone wants home-ice advantage. So if we can continue to win series, that’s going to put us on top. That’s our goal.”
The Jets are 22-12-2.
Calgary had a 1-0 lead in the game off a goal from Elias Lindholmin the first period.
“It’s not just this one,” Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk said. “It’s been win one, lose one, win one, lose one, win one, lose three or whatever. Time is ticking. We’ve been saying this for the past however long, but the time is really, really ticking, so we have to string now a bunch together. We can only be frustrated for tonight. You can’t let it affect the rest of your season because if we have any hope and any chance of stringing a bunch together against all these teams that are ahead of us, we have to dig down deep.”
It’s difficult to win with four or five really good players, and everyone else is a bit actor.
Nate Thompson tied the game at 1-1 before Scheifele scored his two goals.
“We have a lot of professionals, we have a lot of guys that have a lot of character and have been through a lot and have seen a lot in this game,” Scheifele said. “I think it comes from that. There’s no quit in us, we know what makes our team good. Sometimes we get away from it, but we know what to do to get back to it.”
Andrew Copp made it 4-1 in the middle frame, and Pierre-Luc Dubois scored in the third period for the 5-1 final.
David Rittich, who made five saves in the loss.
“You know what? You could probably say we outchanced them, but their top players had better chances 5-on-5 than our better players, and they sealed the deal,” Sutter said.
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