Flames' Huska: We respected Avalanche 'way too much' in loss

Calgary Flames head coach Ryan Huska believes his club showed too much deference to the Colorado Avalanche at the beginning of a 4-2 defeat Friday night.

"I thought we had (a) good push in the third period (but) I didn't like our first two periods," Huska said postgame. "I thought we had too many guys that were not fully into the game tonight, like maybe three quarters to start with. And then, halfway through the game, I thought we started to get more engaged."

Huska suggested his team was too kind to its opponent before becoming more focused later in the contest.

"That's the frustrating thing for me, more than anything, because I felt like they were ready to go today," he said. "I felt at times (we) respected them way too much early in the game. That was pretty evident to me because the detail, the structural side of it, was fine. But it was like people were waiting for something to happen (thinking), 'I don't want to be in the wrong position,' so (they) make a mistake.

"There was a lot of that for me early on, but in the third period, they just played."

The Avalanche outshot the Flames 7-2 in the first period and 19-10 through 40 minutes. Calgary only had three total shots on goal halfway through the contest, and Colorado took a 2-0 lead into the second intermission on goals by Ryan Lindgren and Parker Kelly.

Flames forward Blake Coleman cut the lead in half early in the third, but Kelly netted his second goal of the night to make it 3-1 less than three minutes later. Calgary winger Jonathan Huberdeau brought his team within one with 3:38 to go, but Valeri Nichushkin potted an empty-netter with 1:39 left to seal the Avalanche victory.

The Flames remain in the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. Calgary and the Vancouver Canucks now have identical 30-24-11 records through 65 games, but the Flames hold the tiebreaker with one more regulation win.

The Avalanche occupy third place in the Central Division at 40-24-3.