Turnovers a plenty cost the Flames in Saturday's 5-1 loss to the Cats
At their best, the Calgary Flames would be in tough to beat this Florida Panthers squad. Well below their best? We saw it in Saturday afternoon’s 5-1 beatdown in Florida.
With their roster overhaul, especially losing a complete second-pairing of the defence, the Flames are in tough to close the gap between themselves and a playoff position. We saw the impact of the growing pains, whether it was miscues by players not ready to take a bigger role or established players being forced to take upon themselves too much.
The turnovers were costly, for good reason because there were so many, and curiously the worst culprits were former Panthers Jonathan Huberdeau (notably on the game’s first goal) and MacKenzie Weegar.
The Panthers, who sit atop the league standings, have won seven of eight games and 17 of 20.
“We were all doing it. It wasn't just one goal,” Mikael Backlund told the media on hand. “It felt like it was every shift there was a turnover in the D zone, or at our blueline and their blueline. They were hungry on it, jumping on it."
The positives for the Flames are how they generated golden first-period chances and Yegor Sharangovich scored his 26th goal of the campaign — on a power play, for good measure — but that would be all.
With Calgary’s first loss to the Panthers since the famous trade between the clubs in 2022, the Flames can only hope for a rebound performance against the Carolina Hurricanes Sunday afternoon.
“We have no choice. We want to win tomorrow, so we've got to turn our (attention) here pretty quickly,” Backlund said. “No one likes to lose, but when you play back-to-backs, that's what you've got to do; you've got to shift your focus pretty quickly to the next game.”
