The downward spiral continued tonight in Calgary, as the Vancouver Canucks once again fell apart and allowed the Calgary Flames to get on the board not once, but twice, but seven times in a 7-3 routing at Scotiabank Saddledome.

The game started to fall apart almost instantaneously when Jannik Hansen was sent to the penalty box for a high stick on Joe Colborne. It was a double minor, and while the Canucks thankfully didn’t up a pair over the stretch, Mikael Backlund did manage to roof a loose puck into the back of the net to open the scoring.

Interestingly, the Canucks managed to push back for a little bit, even taking the lead for a few seconds. Nikita Tryamkin surprised the crowd with his first NHL goal just four minutes later, followed by Bo Horvat picking up his 16th of the season on the powerplay with two and a half minutes to go. That “few seconds line” wasn’t a joke, though, as Dougie Hamilton tied it back up 28 one-thousands later to close off the period.

Calgary wasted no time getting back ahead, getting ahead again early in the second minute of the period. Emerson Etem deflected Ben Hutton’s point shot to restore balance at the seven minute mark, but that was the last time that the game would be within reach for the Canucks. Joe Colborne took advantage of a penalty to Andrey Pedan by scoring his 19th of the season, and the Flames never looked back. Backlund picked up a shorthanded tally in the last minute of the frame to create the game’s first multi-goal lead.

Late in the third period, the Flames added insult to injury with two more tallies. Worst of all may have been the fact that even Deryk Engelland got in on the action, putting home his third of the year before Sam Bennett put the game out of its mildly suspenseful misery with four minutes to go.

Nikita Tryamkin had a few genuinely nice defensive plays, was one of the few even possession players, on the team, and had his first NHL goal. Easy choice; the big man deserves a lot of Kudos.

A big thank you to everybody who participated in Money on the Board tonight! We had a few pledges that played out to a successful conclusion, and we’ll be waiting to hear back about your donations to MindCheck shortly. You can still get in on the donating action even if you didn’t make a pledge; we know they’d appreciate it all the same!

This catastrophic roller coaster is almost over, my friends. The Canucks will play their last game on Saturday night, when they take on the Edmonton Oilers. For those of you not going to VanHAC with us, puck drop will be at 7 PM.