Coming off of two disastrous outings in Long Island and Boston on this current road trip, the worst being the 5-0 slaughter of the Flames by the Bruins, Calgary headed into the home of the highest scoring team in the NHL, the team leading the league in points, featuring the leading goal scorer in the league – Alexander Ovechkin, and they came in with the expectation to win?
Huh.. what do you know..
On The Line
Depending on your opinion of things a lot or a little. The Flames aren’t mathematically eliminated, YET. So winning still counts.
The Flow
Calgary came out with all cylinders firing, hoping to get the jump on the home team in the second game of a back to back afternoon start for the club. And what a start it was. The Flames opened the scoring just over 2 minutes in when Ales Kotalik scored his second as a Flame on a backhand, followed up by an Ian White power-play marker, then Jay Bouwmeester’s first goal in a million years. At that point the Capitals decided that Jose Theodore had put them in enough of a hole, so they switched to Semyon Varlamov. The Flames didn’t notice much difference because before the period was out Niklas Hagman put the visitors up by four.
The second period started the comeback effort for the Capitals. The play was pretty much a split, though the Capitals carried a little more pressure and outscored the Flames 2-1. Alexander Ovechkin took the league lead in goal scoring on a power-play which Calgary answered back with when Rene Bourque deked out the Capitals defence then fired a backhand towards the net. The puck flew up in the air and landed in the back of the net to restore the Flames 4 goal lead. However, near the end of the second period, the Capitals got back within three on David Steckel’s 5th of the season, a sneaky little play that Kiprusoff didn’t have much chance on.
The third period, that was ALL Capitals. Calgary was constantly stuck in their own zone and the Caps launched 20 shots on Kiprusoff. Even with all that pressure, Kiprusoff only relented once when Mathieu Perreault found an Alexander Ovechkin rebound and tucked it past a helpless Kiprusoff to get the Capitals within two. That was as close as things would come though.
Three Stars
1. Rene Bourque: Bourque had a goal and two assists in the contest and was a force all afternoon.
2. Miikka Kiprusoff: Kipper bailed the Flames out heavily in the third period securing the win.
3. Alexander Ovechkin: A goal and an assist for the Russian winger. Visibly frustrated in the first period, he didn’t give up and led his team to put enormous pressure on the Flames.
Big Save
Miikka Kiprusoff absolutely robbed Ovechkin on a relatively point blank shot just above the top of the slot. No traffic, but Kiprusoff just barely managed to get a leg on the howitzer from the Capitals captain.
Big Hit
Eric Nystrom and Mike Green apparently don’t like each other. Both leveled big hits on each other in the first period, but the biggest splash was Nystrom hitting Green in the neutral zone. Big, explosive, awesome!
The Goat
Hard to pin a true goat in the game today. Lets just say that whatever led the team to ease the pressure off in the third period.
Mr. Clutch
Without a doubt this game ends in misery if not for the heroics of Miikka Kiprusoff. He stopped nearly everything the Capitals thew at him in the third.
Odds and Ends
A great start for the team, but ultimately the exact same thing that we’ve come to expect from them all season long with the tendency to step away from doing the things they need to do to win. The first period was just what you expect the team to need to do. The second was where things started to go awry and the third left you wondering how they forgot it all. Guys, watch the video. A defensive shell, it doesn’t work. That aggressive forecheck you established in the first that frustrated the heck out of the Capitals, that works. Do that more.
Next Up
The Flames sit idle until Wednesday night when they take on the Coyotes at home. Game time is 7:30 PM MT and you can watch on TSN.
Lines:
Hagman – Stajan – Iginla
Bourque – Backlund – Kotalik
Dawes – Conroy – Moss
Nystrom – Mayers – Sutter
Regehr – White
Staios – Bouwmeester
Giordano – Sarich
Kiprusoff
