The Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames took the ice at Save-on-foods Memorial Centre on Monday night to open up their pre-season. In which the Calgary Flames beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-3 in a nail bitter. Both teams did not fail to impress as the soldout crowd of 7,006 ranging of families got to watch their favorite stars.
Former Victoria Royals captain Matthew Phillips returned to Save-on-foods Memorial Centre receiving multiple standing ovations from the Victoria crowd in gratitude. As well as receiving a video in tribute to his Victoria days.
The game started as much anticipation filled the air, news started to get around the rink as Canucks forward Brock Boeser resigned with the team to a 3-year deal. Calgary started with heavy pressure looking to get things going to set the pace of the game. It wasn’t long until Brandon Davidson would pass the puck to former Royals captain Matthew Phillips who sauced a pass to Dillon Dube who picked up the first goal for the Flames. Calgary would find the back of the net again as Austin Czarnik ripped one past Dipietro unassisted.
The second period would as the Canucks announced on the jumbotron that Brock Boeser resigned which resulted in a standing ovation from all of the Canucks fans in the arena. The Canucks started to balance the pressure after the first period seemed to be all Calgary. Vancouver’s pressure would not be enough as the Flames tacked on one more goal, Austin Czarnik scored picking up his second goal of the game.
The Canucks would really add pressure but the Flames were able to find the back of the net one last time as Rasmus Andersson would knock one off of Canucks’ forward J.T. Millers head past Zane McIntyre making it 4-0 Calgary. It wouldn’t be until the final minutes of the game that the Canucks scored as Loui Eriksson after getting the rebound from Guillaume Brisbois and Josh Leivo.