Yegor Sharangovich hits a career high with his 25th goal in a career-best four-point outing to pace the Flames to a clutch victory
The Calgary Flames are supposed to be raising the white flag, packing it in, giving up hope. They apparently refuse to read the memo.
With the job of trading away their bevy of pending unrestricted free-agents completed thanks to Wednesday’s deal that sent Noah Hanifin to the Vegas Golden Knights, and having received only a couple of roster players back in return, the Flames are supposed to be all but done and dusted from even thinking about punching a ticket into the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Thanks to an impressive, all-hands-on-deck performance the Flames claimed a well-deserved 6-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, their last game before the NHL trade deadline on Friday at 1 p.m. Calgary time.
The Flames have a lofty hill to climb to make the playoffs — sitting six points back of both of the Western Conference’s wild-card positions prior to Thursday night's late action — and need help. However, they have won 10 of their last 14 outings while under the back cloud of all the trade rumours and deals that have seen a trio of defencemen in Nikita Zadorov, Chris Tanev and Hanifin as well as top-line centre Elias Lindholm dispatched through the season.
Thanks to Yegor Sharangovich’s two-goal and career-high four points, Jakob Pelletier’s birthday celebrating first goal of the season, Dryden Hunt’s depth-player tally, and goals by linemates Blake Coleman and Andrew Mangiapane, the Flames keep fighting. It would appear goaltender Jacob Markstrom will not be traded — although anything is possible — so more from him and the Flames will prove to be a tough out.
Now, more thoughts from Calgary’s second victory over the Lightning this season.
- Since cobbling together a 17-18-5 record in their first 40 games, the Flames have posted a 14-8-0 mark — a 104-point pace. They’ll need to maintain that level to have any playoff hope.
- New defenceman Joel Hanley was solid in his Flames debut while playing nearly 18 minutes. Do the Flames put him and their other new blueliner Danilil Miromanov together against the Florida Panthers on Saturday? Or does Calgary stick to the winning lineup and leave Dennis Gilbert in after playing only 3:57?
- Sharangovich has hit a career high with 25 goals, and has netted five in four games. It’s worth remembering when people have an immediate negative opinion on a trade.
- Matt Coronato, who played mainly on a line with Sharangovich and Jonathan Huberdeau, had as solid of a game as we’ve seen from him at the NHL. He has a golden opportunity on this trip with Martin Pospisil suspended and Connor Zary injured.
- The Flames made a minor-league trade, acquiring centre Riley Damiani from the Dallas Stars and sending Emilio Pettersen the other way. Damiani, 23, has played in seven NHL games. He has collected 10 goals and 23 points in 53 games for the Texas Stars.
