The Flames finished up the finale of a bizarre stretch of games that saw Calgary play five games in seven nights including the ever so rare back to back home games. With five of these seven games at home, the Flames started things off slowly with the disastrous game against the Canucks, but rolled off three straight wins up until tonight. Could Calgary start the new year with a win? You bet ya!
On The Line
With the month of December being up, down and further down, the Flames lost a lot of ground to divisional rivals. Tonight, the Flames could keep pace with the Colorado Avalanche, who also won tonight.
The Flow
The first period should be forgotten by all. Outside of a lucky bounce for the Maple Leafs where Jason Blake was credited for his 10th of the season, there was nothing worth describing. A good road period for the Leafs, but really, both teams spent the first waking up.
Calgary took over the game in the second period. Launching 18 shots on goal, the Leafs lead was erased on a nifty turnover created by Jarome Iginla. Daymond Langkow took the puck from the Leafs after Iginla checked the Leafs defenceman, and fired the puck on net. Iginla and Curtis Glencross crashed the crease and after the puck ended up back on the ice Iginla slammed it home. Just 52 seconds later, Glencross scored his ninth of the season on the power-play off an Iginla setup to the top of the circle.
The third was more of a shut down mode period for the Flames. Usually when this happens the Flames start giving up far too many scoring opportunities, and while there were some, it was the Flames with the only goal of the frame as Glencross potted his second of the night into an empty net.
Three Stars
1. Jarome Iginla: A goal and and two assists for the captain, he spurred the Flames to take the lead in the second period.
2. Daymond Langkow: Three assists for the Flames center, finally getting a little bit of gel with his linemates, Glencross and Iginla.
3. Johnas Gustavsson: Gustavsson couldn’t really be faulted for the goals he allowed, a lucky bounce for the Flames on the first goal, and a deflection off his defenceman for the second goal, he faced a lot of quality shots, and kept his team in the game.
Big Save
With the Flames on the power-play, Gustavsson had his glove in the right spot as Robyn Regehr sent a rocket powered slap-shot on goal that Gustavsson didn’t see until he made the save.
Big Hit
It didn’t look like much, but the impact was huge when Dion Phaneuf got his knee taken out on him by Matt Stajan. Phaneuf looked to be embellishing things a bit, but he only played one more shift after that.
The Goat
Pretty hard to pick a goat, but it would have been nice to see the Flames continue to attack in the third instead of sitting back on the one goal lead. Surprising that the team is still reverting to that style of play instead of being the aggressors.
Mr. Clutch
Going to go off the board for this one and pick Adam Pardy. With Phaneuf out, everyone else had to step things up, and Pardy played nearly 20 minutes tonight, far more than the fawn is used to playing.
Odds and Ends
Hopefully Cory Sarich is close to returning, because Phaneuf seemed to be in a fair bit of pain when the replay of the hit with Stajan in the second. Replacing the hulking rearguard is only optioned by the appearance of Staffan Kronwall, and he doesn’t provide the steadiness or offence that the Flames will miss. Sarich doesn’t provide much offence, but he’s still the better option.
At the start of the game there was really only one player that stood out for either side, and I’m a little bit surprised that the coaching staff didn’t make some lineup tweaks because of it. Dustin Boyd was a man on fire in the first period. He created a couple of good plays and got some good shots off. He and his linemates continued to put on a good effort, but didn’t really see that rewarded with a lot of ice time.
Next Up
The Flames have a few games off before taking on the Predators in Nashville on Tuesday night. The games starts at 6 PM MT and can be seen on Sportsnet West.
Lines:
Glencross – Langkow – Iginla
Dawes – Jokinen – Bourque
Nystrom – Conroy – Moss
Sjostrom – Boyd – Prust
Regehr – Phaneuf
Giordano – Bouwmeester
Pardy – Johnson
Kiprusoff
