All Star Break on a High Note  

D'Arcy McGrath

January 30th, 2002

It was a night upside down.

The Calgary Flames, a struggling hockey team that hadn't managed to win two games in a row since late November, up against the league's number one team on the eve of the NHL's All-Star break.

And nothing went according to plan, or at least not to the Wings and many a doubting Calgary hockey fan.

The Flames win two in a row - odd.

The Flames score four goals in one home game - strange.

Three of those goals come from Marc Savard - peculiar.

Two of those Savard goals come on the powerplay - preposterous!

Yet, that's exactly what transpired at the Pengrowth Saddledome on Wednesday night in front of 17,239 disbelieving fans.

The Flames may not get many style points in this one, blowing a 2-0 lead, and relying on goalie, Roman Turek, far too often as they were out shot by a 36-22 margin, but none of that matters when the season gets added up in April.

Two points is two points, and four points in two games is exactly what the Flames needed as they head into the all-star break broken, beaten, but with a glimmer of hope.

For the Flames to climb back into a playoff spot they'll need to get goals from sources unseen, as well as their powerplay back on track.

Both of those factors took a serious boost in the arm in this one with the reemergence of Marc Savard and his goals with the man advantage.

All told the Flames picked up three goals from Savard, plus an assist.

An additional goal and two assists from the recently slumbering sniper, Jarome Iginla.

Plus two assists apiece from Craig Conroy and Jamie Wright, recently recalled from Saint John.

The Flames largest offensive peculiarity was a four goal, two powerplay marker night with nary a point from powerplay quarterback Derek Morris.

The win moves the Flames a game over .500 once again, after dropping one game under the mark with their abysmal six game homestand last week.

With victories from Los Angeles and Phoenix, and a game between the Oilers and Canucks still being played the Flames didn't close any ground with the win, but to maintain ground with the Wings on tap is quite simply the next best thing.

The Calgary side concludes their four game season series with the Wings with a three wins, and one loss record. Detroit has only ten losses on the season through 54 games, with a whopping 30% of those losses coming to the Southern Alberta squad.

Detroit picked up goals from Luke Robitaille, Igor Larionov and Brendan Shanahan.

Manny Legace takes the loss for the Wings, moving his record to 8-2-1. Roman Turek picked up his 19th win on the season to move his mark to 19-13-7.

The Flames don't see action again until February 6th in San Jose.

 

 

Scoreboard
	Calgary Flames	4
	Detroit Red Wings	3

Box Score

FLAMES LINES

OUR THREE STARS

SAVE OF THE GAME

Bob Boughner gets the honor on this one, as the veteran blueliner saved Turke's bacon in the first period. A Wing powerplay point shot deflected past Turek only to have Boughner swoop in and back hand the puck back out through Turek's legs.

NOTES & STATS

A glitch in CBS Sportsline hockey database listed retired center Ron Sutter in the game for the Flames tonight. Sutter wore number 20 for the Flames last season, the same number currently being modeled by Jason Botterill. ... The Flames WON the battle of the special teams for the first time in a long while on the evening. The homeside struck for two powerplay goals on five chances, while killing all four Detroit opportunities. ... The hit statistician took the night off again at the Saddledome, dolling out only 30 registered hits between the two teams, 17 for Calgary. Denis Gauthier and Robyn Regehr each had three hits apiece. Jiri Fischer and Kris Draper had three hits for the Wings. ... With Steve Yzerman out of the Detroit lineup Calgary managed to win 58% of the faceoffs, Craig Conroy and Jeff Shantz. Marc Savard didn't take a draw all night. ... At press time Jarome Iginla and his three point performance, had moved back into a tie with Markus Naslund of the Vancouver Canucks for the NHL's scoring lead. Naslund had one assist in the game to move to 58 points.