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Backlund’s injury exposes Flames in playoff push
The Flames shut down the Avalanche’s biggest stars but Mikael Backlund’s injury exposed Calgary’s lack of depth down the middle.
CALGARY — Turns out the key to stopping the Colorado Avalanche doesn’t necessarily revolve around just shutting down the big boys.
Despite missing Mikael Backlund with an upper body injury that will keep the defensive stalwart out week-to-week, the Flames held Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Cale Makar off the scoresheet Friday.
However, the team that added more depth than anyone before the deadline used it to beat a Flames team on their heels from the get-go, chasing the first 40 minutes.
“I thought we had too many guys that were not fully into the game tonight, like maybe three quarters to start with,” said head coach Ryan Huska following an exhausting night of constant line juggling aimed at kick-starting his group.
“That’s the frustrating thing for me, more than anything, because I felt like they were ready to go today. I just felt at times they respected them way too much early in the game.”
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With Backlund missing from the lineup for the first time in almost four years, Nazem Kadri’s line started the evening keeping an eye on MacKinnon’s top unit before giving way to Morgan Frost and a jumbled mess of trios.
While MacKinnon’s line with Necas and Artturi Lehkonen were limited to just three shots on Dustin Wolf, it was a pair of goals from Parker Kelly, and a seeing-eye wrister from shut-down defenceman Ryan Lindgren that were the difference in a 4-2 game.
“When you shut those guys down and you still lose, that stings a little extra,” said Rasmus Andersson, whose crew was being outshot 17-3 midway through the night.
“They obviously have five, six, seven, eight hell of players with MacKinnon leading it. He’s like a dog on a bone out there, he wants the puck the whole time and you’ve got to play him tight and don’t give him too much. I thought we did a good job with that.
“We can’t let their second and third line beat us when we shut him down.”
Not to nitpick, but it was Kelly’s fourth line that authored Calgary’s demise.
Over the last two years, the Avs are 4-16-2 when MacKinnon and Makar are both held scoreless.
In many ways the Flames beat themselves on this night with a sagging work ethic the first two periods that still somehow saw them keep a low event game 2-0. Credit Wolf for that, stopping 17 of 19 shots to that point, including a Makar penalty shot.
Blake Coleman’s first goal in 15 games seemed to ignite the hosts who quickly gave it back when a rough exchange behind the Flames net resulted in Kelly’s second goal.
Jonathan Huberdeau’s flukey goal off his back with four minutes left made it close before Valeri Nichushkin found the empty net.
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Luckily, the Flames remained tied for the west’s final wild card berth as the Canucks had the night off and Utah lost, keeping them two back.
With Backlund out and Connor Zary serving a two-game suspension, winger Yegor Sharangovich started the evening centering the shut-down line. In the midst of going three for 15 in the faceoff circle, he was demoted to the fourth line and replaced by Morgan Frost who admitted after the game he’s never been tasked with playing any semblance of a shut-down role.
“That hasn’t always been my game, but it’s probably the thing that I want to work on the most, is being able to be trusted in those situations, not having to be hidden,” said the former Flyers centre, who generated a few good scoring chances while playing alongside Coleman.
“I guess there were some shifts that we played against the top line, but kind of mixing and matching.”
How the Flames fill Backlund’s shoes as the team’s most responsible centre will have plenty to say about the team’s chances of staying in the playoff race. Given Friday’s announcement that the captain would be re-evaluated weekly, plenty will be made about how the team shores up the position in which it is, by far, the thinnest.
It could be particularly problematic through the Flames’ four-game road trip starting in Toronto Monday and continuing on to the three New York City-area stops.
“It sucks,” said Andersson of his pal’s upper body injury, suffered Wednesday.
“You never want to be injured. For us we’re losing our captain. We hope he’ll be back sooner rather than later but it’s up to the other five of us (veteran leaders) to get the boys going. We didn’t do a good job of that today.”
