from Kristen Anderson of the Calgary Herald,

The Calgary Flames arrived at Anaheim’s Honda Center fresh after a few days’ worth of skates plus a day off and plenty of rest.

Heck, they hadn’t played since Saturday’s 5-3 come-from-behind win (their fifth come-from-behind win of the season) over the Chicago Blackhawks. And since that victory, they talked about how their play through the previous five games isn’t sustainable despite having won four straight, scoring a league-leading 28 goals in the third period and nabbing points in all five of those games.

As for the Anaheim Ducks? It’s been a season already worth forgetting with a plethora of injuries, an adjustment to a new faster style of play and, just 24 hours earlier, they suffered a loss to the Los Angeles Kings.

So you know how Wednesday’s 3-2 Flames loss was supposed to go — kick them while they’re down.

Nope....

Struggling, you say?

While the goal alone wasn’t enough to fault Smith for, it was his entire 60 minutes of work that needed to instil more confidence in front of him. The two first-period goals he allowed prior to that were not shining moments.

The first one came at the 8:37 mark of the opening frame on a blooper of a save attempt on Jakob Silfverberg’s shot which Smith thought he’d stopped between his pads before letting it dribble between his legs.

Ouch.

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Catch the game highlights below.