Darryl Sutter questioned the effort of several of his players following Tuesday's crucial loss to the Chicago Blackhawks - without naming names, of course.
"Just to sum it up, when you can see the fatigue, or you don't have great legs, you just got to keep your game really simple," the Calgary Flames head coach said after the 4-3 defeat. "Some of us didn't manage the puck very well.
"I just don't know that the energy was there," Sutter added. "Some of our guys looked like they had flat tires."
Flames forward Mikael Backlund wondered if the team had prepared more for Wednesday's clash with the Winnipeg Jets than Tuesday's tilt with the lowly Blackhawks.
"Maybe too many of us were thinking about tomorrow's game and thinking too far ahead," Backlund said.
Backlund's teammate, Nazem Kadri, committed a pair of costly giveaways that led to goals. On Chicago's second tally, he recovered a Blackhawks dump-in but then coughed the puck up behind the net with a one-handed tap to opposing winger Boris Katchouk, who shoveled it to Jujhar Khaira for a backhand goal in the final minute of the opening frame.
"(I) just turned it over, (they) made a nice play," Kadri said. "The ice was getting a little chippy there at the end of the period. We've got to simplify our game, and we can't make those mistakes."
The Flames haven't been eliminated from playoff contention, but they lost all three games against Chicago this season. The Blackhawks entered Tuesday sitting dead last in the NHL and have been at or near the bottom of the standings for most of the campaign.
Winnipeg has two more points than Calgary with a game in hand. The Jets occupy the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
The #Flames' regulation loss to Chicago clinches the tiebreaker for Winnipeg; Calgary's tragic number drops to 3.
ā Ryan Pike (@RyanNPike) April 5, 2023
Any combination of #Flames losses or Winnipeg wins adding to 3 mathematically eliminates them from playoff contention.
The Flames have four more contests on their regular-season schedule. After battling the Jets on the road Wednesday, they'll travel to Vancouver to play the Canucks on Saturday before finishing up by hosting the Nashville Predators on Monday and the San Jose Sharks on April 12.
