TORONTO — Ryan Huska faced a challenge.
He needed to get Matt Coronato back into the lineup after sitting him for the Calgary Flames’ 5-1 win over the New York Rangers on Sunday. After winning for the first time in eight games, though, the Flames head coach didn’t want to mess with what — finally — worked.
The solution? Pull Adam Klapka from the lineup for Tuesday’s matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs and drop Coronato on the fourth line alongside Justin Kirkland and Ryan Lomberg,
It’s not where anyone was expecting to see Coronato at the start of the season, but when you’re struggling as much as the Flames have been, you’ve got to stick with whatever is working.
“I didn’t want to really touch those three lines,” Huska explained on Tuesday morning in downtown Toronto. “I thought we had some chemistry with (Morgan) Frost on the (Nazem) Kadri line, I liked what they did, especially off the rush. They found a way to be more creative than what we’ve been in the past.
“The (Mikael) Backlund line scored some big goals for us and with (Connor Zary, Yegor Sharangovich and Joel Farabee), the zone time they had five-on-five, they were probably the line that had the most zone time for us. We didn’t want to adjust those lines all that much.”
Nobody should be expecting Coronato to stay on the fourth line permanently. His skill-set lends itself to playing with the Flames’ most potent offensive weapons and he did score 24 goals while adding 23 assists last season.
For a team that struggles to score goals, they need Coronato firing on all cylinders and producing offence. But after scoring only twice, adding an assist and posting a minus-9 through nine games this season, Huska believed it was in the 22 year old’s best interest to take a game in the press box and reset mentally.
That’s what Coronato’s tried to do.
“I just want to get back to playing my game and trusting myself and doing what I can to help the group,” Coronato said. “Being a little simple with the puck, making the play that’s there, being good on the forecheck.
“I think for me, I just want to get back to playing my game, however I can do that to help the group win.”
Even if he’s playing on the fourth line, Flames fans should still expect to see Coronato on the power play. His wicked shot was missed against the Rangers when the Flames were on the man advantage. He’ll be out there when opponents take penalties, that much is clear.
“We didn’t want to adjust those lines all that much, but I do feel like Matt is a really important player on our power play, as well,” Huska said. “I thought we missed him (against the Rangers) and his threat to shoot the puck. We’ll get him back going tonight.”
There’s no one thing that Coronato has been missing in his game since the start of the season and he’s certainly not alone in struggling to find the back of the net for the Flames this year. They are, after all, the lowest-scoring team in the NHL with only 21 goals in 10 games.
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Can being made a healthy-scratch give him a boost, though?
Last season, he was assigned to the Calgary Wranglers for a week in the AHL towards the end of October. He didn’t stay down there long, though, and when he came back it took him two games to really get going, but he scored three goals and added two assists in the next four.
It felt like the moment he fully established himself as an NHLer and he hasn’t looked back since.
“I think it’s a different situation,” Coronato said when asked to compare Sunday’s benching with that AHL assignment. “I guess it’s similar in that you take a step back and evaluate your game and the things you can do better. There are things in it that are that same and hopefully I can look to kind of rebound from it.”
NOT THE SAME
With Coronato returning to the lineup, it meant Klapka was set to get the night off against the Leafs.
Asked whether he was hoping Klapka would take the healthy scratch as a chance to reset like Huska felt Coronato needed, the Flames head coach said that wasn’t needed.
“No, Adam’s done some pretty good things for us along the way,” Huska said. “He’ll get himself back in sooner than later.”