Flames Conclude Stand in Style

Gelinas Scores Twice in Flames Win

January 4th, 2002
D'Arcy McGrath

AP Photo

Woa!: Flames Assistant Captain Bob Boughner takes a ride off of the hip of Wild defenceman Nick Schultz.

Now that's a home stand.

Tough loss in an exciting game to the Maple Leafs.

Press conference to announce Darryl Sutter as the club's new head coach.

Win.

Tie.

Win.

And finally a 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night to close off the stand with a 3-1-1 record, and some newly added excitement around the city's hockey team.

Finally.

It's a shame they didn't hire Sutter sooner.

Truth be told there is quite likely a lot more going on than a coaching change.

The Flames best players, including; Jarome Iginla, Chris Drury, Craig Conroy and Roman Turek have all found their way at the same time ... for the first time this season.

Parity in the NHL suggests that a team with a marginal payroll, or any payroll (no offence to Ottawa fans, we realize it's a sore subject these days), simply has to get the most out of their best players on most nights. Without that you are dead in the water, as we've seen through November in the Stampede City.

The Flames best were due, and Darryl Sutter may have been the grease to get things rolling again.

To put things in perspective, the team had only two home victories all season. Since Sutter was hired six days ago the team has three.

Given the fact that we haven't seen any mad cap new systems brought in to this point ... just a refocusing on some of the simpler facets of the game including fore-checking, defensive zone coverage and team work ... it begs the question; why now?

Greg Gilbert was and is no dummy. But was his message being heard?

Doesn't look like it.

Right ... back to the game.

Like most of this home stand, this Wild/Flame encounter was entertaining from the drop of the puck. 

The two teams traded chance for chance through the first half of the first period with neither club able to solve the opposing stopper.

The Flames opened the scoring early in the second period as they applied some serious pressure while playing keep away on a delayed Wild penalty. Finally a rebound squirted out to Toni Lydman, who made no mistake for his third of the season.

Less than three minutes later the Wild tied the game when Andrei Zyuzin took a deft pass from Andrew Burnette and fired a quick low shot past Turek on a Wild powerplay.

The Flames jumped back up again when Martin Gelinas scored his first of two goals on the night, jumping on a Denis Gauthier rebound and sliding the puck past an out of position Dwayne Roloson.

The Flames built their lead to two early in the third period when Gelinas scored again, effectively salting things away.

The Wild did make it interesting late when Burnette cashed in with 15 seconds remaining, but that was as close as they'd get.