Flames defenceman MacKenzie Weegar made sure to address teammates after game misconduct

Ryan Huska didn’t feel the need to address anything with MacKenzie Weegar after he was thrown out of Tuesday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers.

Weegar, though, made sure he talked to everyone in the Calgary Flames’ locker-room.

“You’re embarrassed afterwards, you’re letting your teammates down, you’re leaving a big game,” Weegar explained Saturday morning before the Flames’ rematch with their Battle of Alberta rivals. “You kind of just feel like you’re throwing your teammates under the bus.

“I feel like I’m a key guy on the team and when you get thrown out for stuff like that it doesn’t feel good and I just wanted to address it to the teammates. They were great about it. It’s a great team and a tight group. I just don’t like letting my teammates down like that and leaving the game.”

There wasn’t much argument from anybody about Weegar getting tossed from Tuesday’s game. He’d just been handed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for swiping away Darnell Nurse’s stick after the whistle, which was a pretty clear-cut call by referee Cody Beach.

Weegar didn’t see it that way and argued the call all the way to the penalty box, where he proceeded to repeatedly hit his stick against the glass. Not a smart move, and it wasn’t long before Beach had enough and sent Weegar for an early shower with a game misconduct.

Weegar is known for being passionate, but he’s not a hot-head. That made it surprising that he lost his cool in the way he did.

“I honestly should have just eaten the two minutes and shut my mouth and been quiet,” Weegar said. “I think that’s probably the most important thing to take away from it. I said what I had to say to my teammates afterwards and what-not.

“For the whole incident, I just wanted to talk to (Beach). He didn’t want to talk to me. I banged my stick on the boards and, obviously, they don’t like that stuff. I guess if there’s anything to take from it, it’s be quiet and serve your two minutes.”

Weegar’s ejection meant the Flames were left with only five defencemen for nearly 35 minutes, which isn’t ideal when you’re facing a team that’s got Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in the lineup. It’s especially unhelpful when your team is already down 3-1.

So yeah, it was a mistake by Weegar and he felt bad about it and took accountability and apologized to his teammates afterwards. That’s what you want from a veteran when they mess up.

What didn’t happen, though, was a dressing-down from Weegar’s head coach.

Huska just didn’t think that was necessary. Not with a guy like Weegar.

“I don’t think that would have been anything that needed to come from me,” Huska explained. “MacKenzie has been around a long time, he gets it, but he’s a very passionate guy. What you see from MacKenzie is the way he is.

“There are certain situations like that one where you want to harness it a little bit, but he totally gets it.”

It’s not like Weegar had any misapprehensions about how his head coach felt about the incident, of course.

“Less was more there,” he explained. “We kind of understood each other and I understood if he did want to talk to me he had the right to do so and that shows the trust he has in me.”

daustin@postmedia.com

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