The Calgary Flames didn’t generate a ton of offense against the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night. But when they did, they made those chances count, creating some dangerous opportunities. The difference was Mackenzie Blackwood, who came up with several huge saves to keep the Flames at bay.

The Avalanche controlling much of the shot share, they dictated play offensively, spending plenty of time in the Calgary zone and cycling the puck. Even with a multi-goal lead and what felt like a comfortable path to two points, Blackwood never let up. He stayed locked in until the final buzzer, delivering exactly what you want to see from your No. 1 goaltender.

“I know they played last night, but you can tell they’re a younger group who will trade offense and defense for each other. They might give something up to get something,” Blackwood said. “So if you’re not really detail-oriented when you play them, it can be tough because you know they’re going to get their chances.

“For me, you can’t take any team lightly. Whether we’re playing Carolina, Tampa, Dallas, you name it, right? Calgary Flames, they can freaking come in this rink and beat you any night. There are 32 good teams in the NHL, and onbany given night, if you’re not ready to go, they’ll beat you.”

10 Takeaways

That robbery of a glove save on Matt Coronato with seconds remaining in the first period was spectacular. He also made a huge pad stop on Coronato again late in the second period in the crease. Those were just two of his highlight-reel stops.

“Yesterday or the day before, I talked about the Toronto game, where we didn’t give up a lot of chances, but the ones we did were huge ones, and they went in the back of the net. That was the difference for me tonight. I thought we were doing the right things defensively, checking the right way, but we made some mistakes with the puck that, when we’re going one way and we turn the puck over and they’re coming the other way, it’s usually your best chance at creating a grade-A chance. They got a handful of them tonight, and he was awesome and made some huge saves for us.”

That double-minor in the third period was a tough watch. And it highlighted a lot of the issues they’ve had for several years now. Too much finesse and not enough down-low muck and grind type of goals. The more you battle down low, and the more you push the opposition back, the more times you can give the puck to Cale Makar closer to the hashmarks to shoot it into the net.