Kuzmenko's costly penalties overshadow return to Flames' lineup

Nashville Predators' Fedor Svechkov, centre, and Mark Jankowski, left, check Calgary Flames' Andrei Kuzmenko during second period NHL hockey action in Calgary on Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Andrei Kuzmenko's troubles continued on Saturday as he went from the press box to the penalty box.

A healthy scratch in seven of Calgary's previous eight games, Kuzmenko finally drew back into the Flames' lineup only to take two costly penalties in a 4-1 loss to the Nashville Predators.

“Two offensive zone penalties,” bluntly noted coach Ryan Huska post-game.

The first for slashing at 4:21 of the second period resulted in Ryan O'Reilly's power-play goal and first of three goals on the night.

The second for playing with a broken stick at 10:04 of the second, again led to an O'Reilly power-play goal to make it 2-0.

“Two penalties and two power-play goals. Not good. My mistakes,” said Kuzmenko.

On the second that resulted in what turned out to be the winning goal, Kuzmenko's stick snapped as he went to tee up a shot from inside the blue line. As the puck trickled forward, he chased after it and kicked it up to Mikael Backlund, who was open in the slot. But he didn't drop the broken half of his stick.

“Stupid moment, right?” said Kuzmenko.

PK problems

Magnifying the 28-year-old's mistakes was Calgary's inability to kill off either penalty, which has been a chronic problem of late. The Flames rank 30th on the PK and have given up power-play goals in each of their last six games.

“There's parts of it where you feel like it's coming, but when there's a breakdown now, it's ending up in the net, and we do go through stretches like that. You just feel like the stretches for our team in that situation have been much too long this year,” said Huska.

“You have to find a way to have a clean sheet with your penalty kill. No matter what power play you're playing against, you have to find a way to get the job done.”

Saturday's two power-play goals against came on only two chances, leaving Calgary a woeful 9-for-16 on the kill over that span.

“We gotta figure it out,” said Backlund. “If you want to make the playoffs, that's something that's gonna have to be a lot better for us.”

Calgary remains one point back of Vancouver for the second wild-card berth in the Western Conference with a pack of teams right behind them.

Kuzmenko

Kuzmenko was part of the return package when Calgary traded Elias Lindholm to the Vancouver Canucks last January.

In 29 games with the Flames last season, Kuzmenko scored 14 goals. Nearly an identical clip to the 39-goals he notched as a rookie the previous season.

Entering the final year of his contract, Kuzmenko was viewed this year as a key part of the Flames' offence.

But he has struggled all season with only one goal in 30 games — that goal coming back on Oct. 15 in the club's fourth game. His last two appearances have come on the fourth line.

Having not registered a shot on goal over his last five games, he did break that skid Saturday and while only one shot reached the goalie, he did have eight shot attempts.

“A positive thing for him is he had a lot of shots attempts tonight, and that's something we've been asking of him,” acknowledged Huska.

“I understand that's a lot of chances from 10 minutes, it's very good, but it doesn't matter if you don't score,” lamented Kuzmenko.

Calgary returns to action on Tuesday when the Flames open a two-game road trip in Anaheim. It remains to be seen if Kuzmenko will get a chance to redeem himself or if he'll end up back in the press box.

“A difficult moment, but stay positive,” said Kuzmenko.” Keep working. Every day. Gym, bike, let's go, let's go. Keep going.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 4, 2025.