Calgary Flames 2 St. Louis Blues 0

Turek Stones Former Mates

Rick Charlton

November 17th, 2001

The only thing the Calgary Flames have asked Roman Turek to deliver this young season is the consistent goaltending that Fred Brathwaite couldn't.

Facing former fan favourite Brathwaite last night at the Saddledome, Turek turned in a sensational performance, stopping 38 shots, many of them difficult, in a 2-0 Calgary victory.

It was the fourth shutout of the season for Turek and it would also be fair to say the towering netminder nicknamed "Large" by his teammates gave the Flames points they shouldn't have had for a third straight game.

In other words, the new mantra for Flames fans is: "Freddie who?"

The victory extended Calgary's undefeated string to eight games (6-0-2), its longest such streak since the 10 games without a loss in 1992-93.

Calgary is now a terrific 13-2-2-2 on the season, the best start in franchise history, good for 30 points and second place overall in the NHL behind Detroit (33 points) pending the outcome of the later Vancouver/Edmonton contest.

Turek has never been beaten by a former team, now 11-0-2 against Dallas and St. Louis.

Flames were outshot 38-19 in this contest, a remarkable statistic considering Calgary actually had an incredible four two man advantage opportunities over five minutes and 43 seconds.

It was on the last of those advantages at 17:10 of the second period that Jarome Iginla, the NHL's leading scorer with 31 points, finally beat Brathwaite with his 15th of the season. Iginla, extending his point streak to 13 games, one-timed a cross-ice Dean MacAmmond pass behind the former Flames netminder.

Iginla, on another powerplay at 11:16 of the third, twisted himself into a pretzel in backhanding a Brathwaite rebound into the net to put the game out of reach.

From that moment on the Blues poured everything they could at Turek, outshooting Calgary 17-5 in the final frame but skating away disappointed time and time again.

A peculiarity of this game is the fact Turek will actually have to share the shutout with Mike Vernon who was tossed into the game for one shift to give an exhausted Flames power play a breather. Vernon played :54 seconds and faced no shots.

It would not be a stretch to say Turek robbed in consecutive games Colorado, Chicago and now St. Louis, contests where his team was largely outplayed but ended up with five of a possible six points.

The Blues have lost three straight games and in fairness to the Flames, St. Louis dug their own grave with some incredibly undisciplined play which resulted in numerous Calgary powerplays.

Flames were helped by the return of crease clearing defenceman Bob Boughner but were without the services of centre Rob Niedermayer, forcing a collection of Steve Begin, Scott Nichol and Clarke Wilm to pick up the slack.

Al MacInnis high sticked Derek Morris in the face in the second which drew considerable blood but Morris missed only a shift.

Calgary, already among the league leaders in man games lost, may have suffered another serious blow when Craig Conroy went down after taking a knee to the head late in the game. Flames were already without fellow centres Marc Savard and Rob Niedermayer. On the St. Louis side, MacInnis disappeared in the third with an unspecified difficulty.

Box Score

OUR THREE STARS

1) Roman Turek - A dominating, if not controlled performance from start to finish 

2) Jarome Iginla - He said last week he wanted to carry this team on his shoulders. He's doing it. 

3) Doug Weight - Involved all night and could have scored a hat trick if not for Turek.

SAVE OF THE GAME

- Where do we start? Although he made better saves late in the third, we'll count the one Turek made with the game on the line. Flames were ahead by a slim one goal margin early in the third the Blues on the power play, when Turek made a terrific glove stop on a MacInnis blast from the point.

HIT OF THE GAME

Chris Clark ran over defensemen Alex Khavanov late in the second period which prompted Blues Keith Tkachuk to draw Clark into a fight. Nice trade for the Flames - Tkachuk drew 17 minutes with an instigator penalty, five for fighting and a ten minute misconduct.

NOTES & STATS

Former Flame Cory Stillman, a healthy scratch the last two games, drew in and responded with some physical play and had a couple of near misses. . . . . . . Jeff Cowan and Jamie Allison, the latter guilty of two collossal miscues against Chicago the previous game, were healthy scratches for the Flames. . . . . .Blues ran up a 6-0 advantage in shots in the first ten minutes as the Flames continued their alarming tendency for slow starts. . . . . Derek Morris should have waited one second on his 33 shifts as he finished with 29:59 in ice time. . . . . Chris Pronger logged 28:24 of ice time. . . . . . MacInnis led the Blues with six shots while Iginla had seven of the Flames total of 19. . . . . . Ex- Flames prospect Sergei Varlamov had five hits for the Blues while Ronald Petrovicky had three for the Flames. . . . . St. Louis won 77% of the faceoffs in the first period but when the dust had settled by the end of the game had only a 51% advantage over Calgary centers. . . . . . . . .A fast whistle took a goal away from Toni Lydman mid-way through the first. Doug Weight was going to be penalized and the puck had bounced in front off Brathwaite. . . . Cory Stillman gloved a puck past Turek in the third but the apparent goal was immediately called back by the referee. . . . . . . Flames have outscored opponents 25-8 in the third period so far this year.

 

 

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