The Calgary Road Warriors returned to home ice this evening to face Ilya Kovalchuk & the Atlanta Thrashers. The Flames embarked on a 6 game road trip 2 weeks ago and avoided all the cold messy weather here, then returned with a healthy 4 wins and a huge boost of confidence tucked under their belts. Calgary is a place where the Thrashers have been snake bitten – losing 4 straight at the Saddledome, and tonight would be no different as Kovalchuk and the Thrashers were frustrated by the magical goaltending of Miikka Kiprusoff and dropped a 3-1 contest to the Flames.
On The Line
Calgary has slipped just below Colorado in the divisional standings by 1 point and will look to reclaim the Northwest lead tonight. Calgary owns 3 games in hand on the Avalanche, but it always feels better to see your name at the top. Calgary wants to keep their momentum going and transfer that on to home ice, where wins have been much harder to come by. The Thrashers are on a bit of a roll themselves having won 5 of their previous 7 contests, and currently reside in 6th place in the Eastern Conference.
The Flow
An entertaining 1st period was marred by a sloppy start for Calgary. The first shift saw Atlanta throw everything they had at Kiprusoff, who had to make about 3 or 4 saves in the opening minute alone. He was able to withstand the barrage, and the rest of the period played out fairly evenly. There was lots of chances, open ice, and huge hits. Neither team was able to break the draw and the game went to the intermission locked at zero’s.
The second frame was tilted to the home side. With shots in the period 14-6 for Calgary, the amount of missed shots and scoring chances would easily equal that. It seemed every single shift they Flames were on an odd-man rush or given a glorious opportunity. They managed to pot a couple goals, but realistically could have had six or seven. First, Nigel Dawes continued to put on a goal tipping clinic when he re-directed an Aaron Johnson shot designed to miss the net for his 9th of the year. The puck slid neatly past the outstretched pad of Johan Hedberg. Then Olli Jokinen took a pretty Jarome Iginla pass, and slapped the rolling puck past Hedberg to make it 2-0.
Calgary again had the edge in play in the 3rd period, but were the victims of an unfortunate bounce off the skate of Colby Armstrong in which the puck found its way behind Kiprusoff and in to the Calgary net. Kiprusoff and Hedberg were both strong the rest of the way including a point blank block save by #34 off Maxim Afinigenov with a minute and a half left, and the Flames added an empty netter off the stick of Bourque for the convincing 3-1 home ice victory.
Three Stars
- Miikka Kiprusoff: Stopped 24 of 25 shots, including a couple beauties. Kipper just continues to roll and prove to the NHL that he is back on top and in a very big way.
- Johan Hedberg: If you forgot he was in the NHL, you weren’t the only one. Hedberg reminded us tonight with a dazzling 30 save on 32 shot performance. Many of his saves were absolute robberies and he kept this game from getting out of hand, which it should have.
- Olli Jokinen: Scored his 7th of the season but easily could have had more had it not been for Hedberg’s heroics. Jokinen was the Flames best player not wearing #34.
Big Save
Lots of goaltending to behold on this one, but two saves stand out to me.With the Flames leading 1-0 in the 2nd period, Miikka Kiprusoff flashed the leather on a point blank laser of a wrist shot by Ilya Kovalchuk. The puck was labelled for the corner but Kiprusoff was game for it, as he snared it out of thin air and prevented the sure goal. Johan Hedberg made a great save on David Moss in the 1st period when the Flames forward caught the puck out of the air and was all alone in front. Moss went for the backhand deke but was stoned by the right pad of Hedberg.
Big Hit
Jim Slater was on a mission in the 1st period. First he dumped Dustin Boyd with a hard check that left #16 staggering, then hammered the bigger Olli Jokinen to the ice the next shift.
The Goat
Rene Bourque almost had the goat horns. Calgary was leading 1-0 and Dustin Boyd fired a shot which Hedberg kicked out to Bourque who was bearing down with an open net. Bourque fired the shot just wide and had Atlanta came back to win, that chance would be going through everyone’s mind tonight. But, the Flames won, so Rene…you’re off the hook.
Mr. Clutch
Miikka Kiprusoff played so good, yet again. The one goal that beat him was just a case of bad luck. He was great in the final minutes with Atlanta pressing for the tieing goal.
Odds and Ends
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a team miss out on so many scoring chances. I wasn’t counting, but if I had to wager a guess I would put it at around 25-30 quality chances. A ridiculous amount given the shot and goal totals. Calgary had lots of jump and that’s great to see coming off such a long road trip. Colorado lost to the Wild tonight, meaning Calgary now has a 1 point lead in the Northwest division with 3 games in hand. Shots tonight were 32-25 in favour of the Flames. Jay Bouwmeester led both teams in ice time with 27:26. Curtis Glencross and Colby Armstrong were feuding all game, and capped it off with a 3rd period fight in which Glencross easily had the upper hand. Rene Bourque and Eric Nystrom paced the Flames with 5 shots each. Jarome Iginla had 2 assists for the only multi-point game of the night. Would have given him 3rd star, but I thought Jokinen played the better all-around game and generated a few more chances.
Next Up
Calgary concludes their mini 2 game home-stand on Friday, when the Minnesota Wild come to town for a game which is surprisingly the 1st contest between the two teams this season. Gametime is 7:00 PM and can be seen on PPV, or heard on the Fan 960.
Lines:
Dawes – Jokinen – Iginla
Bourque – Langkow – Moss
Glencross – Boyd – Nystrom
Sjostrom – Prust – McGrattan
Regehr- Phaneuf
Giordano – Bouwmeester
Pardy – Johnson
Kiprusoff
