Sutter set to shuffle ‘streaky’ goaltending down the stretch
Published
Two days after the Calgary Flames blew a two-goal lead in the waning minutes against the Ottawa Senators and lost in overtime, head coach Darryl Sutter classified his team’s goaltending this season as “streaky” and seemed to hint at a more even split in starts down the stretch.
Jacob Markstrom and Dan Vladar have combined for the league’s fifth-worst 5-on-5 save percentage (0.905). Markstrom is 54th of the 64 most-used goalies in the league in save percentage (0.891) and 56th in both slot save (0.800) and inner-slot (0.734) save percentage.
Vladar’s numbers have been better across the board. His save percentage is 0.902 while his slot save percentage is 0.848 and inner-slot save percentage is 0.823.
“I’m not getting into individual stuff,” the coach said after Wednesday’s practice when asked specifically about Markstrom. “That’s for you to go talk to players.”
Markstrom was not made available to reporters.
Sutter altered the team’s plans on how they would divide starts between his goaltenders at the quarter mark of the season. The team was 9-9-3 at that point, and Markstrom had started 16 of 21 games (76 per cent). Since then, the team has gone 16-9-8 and Markstrom has started 20 of 33 games (61 per cent).
“We really dug in on that and adjusted it,” Sutter said.
The team made another adjustment around the Christmas. With their playoff status still very much uncertain, the coach implied that Vladar and Markstrom will share the crease more for the remainder of the season. Currently, the Flames are tied with the Minnesota Wild for the second wild-card spot, but the Wild have a game in hand.
“You need two goalies,” Sutter said. “That ratio is closing up for us.”
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Andersson skating
Rasmus Andersson took the ice Wednesday on the fourth defence pairing alongside Connor Mackey.
The Swede has missed the past three games after getting struck by a car in Detroit. Andersson is far and away the Flames’ best puck-moving blueliner and a big key in their transition game.
He’s first among all Calgary defencemen in offensive zone possession time, zone entries, zone exits, and pass completions per game, and his turnover rate is the lowest in the group. His 27 assists are second on the Flames to Elias Lindholm.
There’s no indication when he’ll be ready for game action.
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Positives from Ottawa loss
Despite the heart-wrenching defeat against Ottawa, Dillon Dube, who has six points in his last two games, liked much of how his team played on Monday evening.
“I thought we played a really good 57 or however many minutes,” he said. “I thought we played a great game…that’s just how hard it is to win, especially this time of year. There’s lots to build off that game.”
Dube, Elias Lindholm, and Tyler Toffoli have been together since mid-December, and spent part of the Flames’ bye week vacationing in Mexico. Dube said Toffoli’s demeanor on the bench has rubbed off on him.
“He’s had an awesome career and lots of success. So, for a guy like that, you like being around him,” Dube said. “He knows the emotions of the games and is always even-keeled, and it settles me down when you’re in big moments of games because you’re playing with him, you know he steps up and makes really big plays. It’s a lot of fun playing with him.”
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Practice lines on Wednesday
Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli
Pelletier-Kadri-Huberdeau
Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman
Lucic-Lewis-Ritchie
Ruzicka
Hanifin-Tanev
Zadorov-Weegar
Gilbert-Stone
Mackey-Andersson
Markstrom
Vladar