Your Flames really blew it in Vegas

Waking up this morning, you’re probably looking for answers after the Calgary Flames dropped a tough one on the road to the Vegas Golden Knights, 6-3. For those who turned in early, it started promising enough with Martin Frost getting on the board in the first. But the second period was a wild west shootout, Calgary trading blows with Vegas. Blake Coleman potted two goals, looking like the Coleman we need, but Mitch Marner for the Golden Knights was absolutely everywhere, burying a couple and setting up others. That power play goal by Pavel Dorofeyev late in the second, that’s where the wheels really started to wobble, and they never got back on track.

The Golden Knights just kept coming in the third, making it a long flight back to Calgary. Brett Howden and Ivan Barbashev padded their lead, and then Marner finished his hat trick late, just rubbing salt in the wound. The shots were 34-22 for Vegas, which tells you a lot about how much sustained pressure Calgary could actually generate. It’s hard to win when you're giving up that many quality chances, especially on the road. You can't just rely on Jacob Markstrom to stand on his head every single night against a team like Vegas.

So, what does this mean for the Calgary Flames? Well, the standings don’t lie. We’re sitting at 70 points, still way back in the Pacific, and the playoff picture is looking bleaker by the day. We've gone 5-4-1 in our last ten, which isn't terrible, but it's not good enough to make up ground when other teams are streaking. There's a lot of talk around the city, from the folks grabbing coffee on 17th Ave to the riggers starting their shifts, about what this team needs to do. We still got games left, but the margin for error is gone. We need to find that fire fast, starting with the next one.

Red and gold forever — give'r, Calgary.

The boys at the morning show are ripping into this one — catch their take live at mornings.live.