Trust me.
It's better if things
end this way.
The Calgary Flames
were a red hot hockey
team for much of the
month of March. Their
scorers scored. Their
keepers kept. Their
special teams, were ...
well ... more special
than usual. They were
winning.
After a season like
the 2002-03 saga the
last thing the Calgary
paying customer needs is
a bad hockey team with
an inflated ego.
There's little chance
of that happening with
the club losing their
second straight game to
the league's two recent
expansion cousins,
tonight losing in
Minnesota by a score of
3-0.
|
| Lowry |
Conroy |
Clark |
| Saprykin |
Drury |
Clark |
| Gelinas |
Yelle |
Donovan |
| Berube |
Betts |
Sloan |
| Mondator |
Boughner |
| Leopold |
Regehr |
| Lydman |
Commodore
|
|
The
game itself was similar
to many evenings this
season.
The
club played fairly well,
arguably better than
their opposition, but
just couldn't get it
done.
Jame
McLennan was good, but
not as good as his
counterpart Manny
Fernandez.
The
Flames out shot the Wild
by a 26-16 margin but
couldn't take advantage
of their opportunities.
Five
on five they played the
93 point Wild to a scoreless
draw, but got their
lunch handed to them in
odd man situations with
the home side burying
three powerplay goals on
eight chances while the Flames
coming up empty on seven
of their own.
|
2003
Draft Watch |
|
If
the draft was held
today ... |
|
Pick
|
Team
|
Player*
|
| 1 |
Carolina |
M.-A.
Fleury |
| 2 |
Pittsburgh |
Nathan
Horton |
| 3 |
Columbus |
Milan
Michalek |
| 4 |
Buffalo |
Nikolai
Zherdev |
| 5 |
Atlanta |
Braydon
Coburn |
| 6 |
Florida |
Eric
Staal |
| 7 |
San
Jose |
Andrei
Kastsitsyn |
| 8 |
Calgary |
Anthony
Stewart |
| *ranking:
Red
Line 3-27-03 |
|
In the
end the only thing they
got right was a positive
step in the draft
position race as their
back to back losses have
moved them back into the
6th position for this
summer's swap meet.
The two
clubs played to a
scoreless tie through 20
minutes with the Flames
out shooting the Wild by
an 8-6 margin.
Minnesota
opened the scoring in
the game's 35th minute
when Cliff Ronning
blasted one home with
his club enjoying a two
man advantage.
Less
than four minutes later
the Wild doubled their
lead when Canadian World
Junior rookie Pierre
Marc Bouchard slid the
puck into the cage past
a fallen and helpless
Jamie McLennan.
Calgary
pressed in the third
period, out shooting the
Wild by a 9-2 margin but
couldn't get the puck to
the net regularly to
test Fernandez to any
great degree.
The Wild
salted things away with
another powerlay goal
with less than a minute
left to play when Antti
Laaksonen scored his
15th of the season.
Next up
for Calgary is San Jose
at the Saddledome on
Wednesday night.
Â
