A curious situation for Flames fans has brewed in the past week. What has characterized Calgary for the past couple of years has been the notorious slow starts of Miikka Kiprusoff and the rest of the Flames, but there’s been something different this season. While the Flames have looked, at times, like they were scrambling around and barely hanging on for wins, or barely managing to eek them out, the fact of the matter remains: the Flames have matched a franchise record for consecutive wins to start a season.
But managing to pull out magic to tie the game in Edmonton last night, literally in the last second, these heart wrench kids were likely on the verge of seeing the magical start to the season hit a road bump as a well rested Dallas Stars team awaited the Flames at the Saddledome on Friday night.
What resulted was not pretty, not organized, and definitely not a win.
On The Line
For the Flames it was a chance to push the winning streak to five games and set a franchise record, but outside of that, the fact that they won the night before, and have railed off four straight wins, not a heck of a lot. For the Stars it was a chance to finally get into the win column after dropping two straight games in extra time, the last one to the Oilers on Tuesday night, the same night the Flames shot down the Canadiens.
The Flow
Before you could sit down and enjoy the satisfying *spsst* of the your first beer, the Stars had a one goal lead. Stephane Robidas fired a puck on Curtis McElhinney who kicked out a most ridiculous rebound right to Mike Ribero who put his first of the season past the Flames backup. There will be some who will say that the Flames were out of position, but barely a minute into the game, McElhinney has to give his teammates a little bit more to work with than the audacious concept that they should clear such a rebound. The Flames and Stars traded chances through the period, but the Stars held the edge, and as has become a norm when Dallas visits the Flames, turned the neutral zone into a tar pit. Calgary’s best opportunity came on the power-play, but they couldn’t get things to go tape to tape enough to get past Auld. Dallas’ best chance came when Loui Eriksson had a glorious chance in close, but McElhinney got the glove out to stop him.
The second period didn’t start any better for the Flames either. As just one minute into the frame the Flames were unable to clear the zone and Brian Sutherby used Staffan Kronwall’s stick to ramp the puck over a rather helpless McElhinney. It looked like things might turn in Calgary favour after Steve Ott set a pick on Adam Pardy before he was even near the puck. Dion Phaneuf made the most efficient use of power-play time as he took a Jarome Iginla face-off win and absolutely blasted a shot past Alex Auld. With the Flames gaining more and more momentum, it looked like they were going to tie things up before the end of the second, except that McElhinney was the recipient of a bad bounce, with bad luck, and bad positioning as Tom Wandell shot the puck on net, it bounced up into the air after going off of McElhinney’s stick and over his head and into the net. Just like that, the Flames chances seemed to have been dashed.
The third saw the Flames trying desperately to find a way through the Stars trap in the neutral zone, but repeated offsides and icings proved to slow down the pace of the game and stall the Flames. It wasn’t until Steve Ott once again took a penalty, this time for pushing McElhinney into his own net before Eriksson could put the puck in. This time it was Rene Bouque who picked up the deflection off of a Dallas defender and put the puck behind Auld before Auld could move into position to make the save. Brad Richards would set up Loui Eriksson for his first of the year just moments later killing any hope the Flames had to push the winning streak to five. A late power-play had a few chances, but nothing solid and Richards salted away the win with an empty net goal to make the final 5-2.
Three Stars
1. Mike Ribero: Ribero set the pace for the night with his first of the year and getting an assist on the Dallas second goal. Both goals coming in the opening moments of the first and second period which killed the emotion for the Flames.
2. Stephane Robidas: Solid performance from Robidas outside of his horrible diving act that must have been something he picked up from Sean Avery before Avery disgraced himself.
3. Steve Ott: While Ott’s two penalties ended up with goals against, he has proven to be a supreme pest, who can make you pay in more ways than one. The model that Brandon Prust should look to I think.
Big Save
Probably the biggest save in terms of when it happened was Alex Auld on Freddie Sjostrom in the second period. The Flames had a chance to tie things up and Sjostrom used his speed to get ahead of the defender for a one on one chance against Auld, but the big Dallas netminder held to his ground, stuck with Sjostrom the entire way and made the save.
Big Hit
Not much of a physical affair in this one, no big wallops or game changers in this timid affair.
The Goat
It’s easy to lay this one at the feet of Curtis McElhinney, but it’s more the Dallas Stars as a team. No one player was especially bad, but McElhinney simply wasn’t good.
Mr. Clutch
Far be it from Alex Auld to have been great tonight, but he was good enough.
Odds and Ends
Finally a night from Robyn Regehr and Dion Phaneuf where they weren’t head and shoulders the worst players on the ice, tonight it was a little rougher for the likes of Adam Pardy and Staffan Kronwall. Regehr was a little more physical, and it seems that when he gets into his physical game is when he gets into his good game. Smashy smashy means more betterness! The play of the guys on the top line is improving in other areas than offence. The offence will come, but they weren’t the ones getting hemmed in every time. This biggest reason for this one seems to be just how hard it was to gain entry into the Stars zone. Once the Flames managed to get in there, they had a pretty good attack going, it was just the issue of breaking through the mess of players that everyone had issues with. Fans likely had an issue with that too since it was like watching the Dallas Stars of last season, and that means it was an absolute snore-fest courtesy the visitors.
Next Up
Calgary heads into Chicago on Monday evening to take on the Blackhawks. You can watch all the action on Calgary Flames Pay-Per-View starting at 6PM MT.
Lines:
Nystrom – Jokinen – Iginla
Dawes – Langkow – Bourque
Glencross – Conroy – Boyd
Sjostrom – Jaffray – Prust
Regehr – Phaneuf
Giordano – Bouwmeester
Pardy – Kronwall
McElhinney
