from Randy Sportak of the Calgary Sun,

When the dust settled on the affair at the Joe Louis Arena, the Flames won a paltry 15 of 55 faceoffs — a mere 29%.

Mikael Backlund won six of 17 draws, while Sean Monahan won only three of 19. It’s not a good sign when your two most active centres can’t gain possession of the puck.

“Faceoffs are basically a one-on-one battle with support crew around,” said head coach Bob Hartley, who wouldn’t mince words on the subject. “We don’t have really good numbers on faceoffs, it’s not a secret, but tonight they gave us quite a spanking.”

That lack of success is costing the Flames with their NHL-worst powerplay. Think of how often they start the man-advantage in the opposition zone, only to be forced to retreat to their end to get a puck fired down the ice and losing valuable seconds.

It has been costing them with their bottom-feeding penalty-kill, ruining a chance to burn opposition powerplay time right off the hope.

read on