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Powerhouse Blues Hand Lowly Flames Defeat
Blues 3 – Flames 2 (SO)

Daniel Lemmon
January 30, 2006

Second game of a back to back, last game of a five game road trip and the competition is the dead last in the NHL, traded the two top scorers in the last 24 hours, no name player made up St. Louis Blues. So the Flames did exactly what you’d expect them to do. Took the second point, shot it twice in the knees and lit it on fire for all to gawk at in horror.

On The Line

What was on the line? Only holding off the ever present tough competition in the NHL’s Northwest division, the chance to deliver a debilitating blow to the NHL’s by far worst team, and the chance for stats padding…I guess the Flames forgot to write that on the board.

The Flow

Question: What was this game like?  Answer: Like a Ford small-stars intermission game…but slower. You know it’s not going to be a good night when the St. Louis Blues out work you. Only a Flames team that loves to mystify its faithful fans could come out slower, as inconsistent and as sloppy enough to let the Blues beat them. Be it the missed passes, the lack of fore-check, the fact that a single line couldn’t repeat the effort of a previous good shift, this game was ugly…I would have turned it off if I didn’t have to write it up.

Three Stars

1 – Curtis Sanford. Considering the powerhouse that makes up the Blues team the fact that the Flames stunk doesn’t register to me. Right off the bat, when making a spectacular save off of Kristian Huselius, Sanford saved the game for the Blues. Perhaps if Beetlejuice had scored on that play the Blues might have packed up and let the Flames have their way with them…or not.

2 – Jay McClement.  Got the Blues started on the comeback scoring his team’s first goal that immediately gave life to the bottom feeders.

3 – Doug Weight. For getting the heck out of St. Louis to play for a decent team.

Big Hit

Quote the Roger Millions: “Rhett Warrener with a perfectly executed hit.” Yes the Bumper to Bumper “Bump of the Night.” It was frankly lame, but what wasn’t?

Big Save

Definitely this one has to go to Curtis Sanford. As I mentioned above, if he doesn’t stone Huselius early in the first period…the Blues might not have won…or not.

The Goat

I love Darryl Sutter and Jim Playfair and tolerate the jokes made about Rich Preston’s mumbling, but when your team is unable to come out and play in the second game of a back to back where the travel is nothing, the competition is nothing, and you haven’t managed to win both games of the back to back all season, I lay the blame on the coaching staff. Seriously guys, how can you not motivate your players to take a team like the Blues and make them beg for mercy? HOW?!

Mr. Clutch

Curtis Sanford. Timely saves, aforementioned game breaking saves, and holding out in the shootout. Here’s you’re mister clutch!
 
Odds and Ends

If you can’t say anything nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. So I won’t really talk too much more about this one. Rarely are there games where I wish I could turn it off and check the score later, but man was this one of them. After the second period I couldn’t help but think that only the Flames could do this to me, or perhaps the Vancouver Canucks, and let a game like this slip away. Congratulations are due to rookie defenseman Mark Giordano who stepped into his first NHL game and promptly played 14 minutes of fairly solid hockey. Expect to see a lot more of Giordano and Richie Regehr as Roman Hamrlik is sidelined again for another month after suffering a broken hand in yesterday afternoons tilt with the Blackhawks. Talk about bad luck! In my last game takes I commented that Jarome Iginla had finally been found, thought that was even more the case after the start of the road trip, sadly he’s once again faded into obscurity. Getting an assist on a fortunate bounce out to Marcus Nilson didn’t make up for the fact that the captain was largely invisible tonight, and as John Garret astutely pointed out is not driving to the net. Get with the program Jarome. In other NHL news Canucks defenseman Ed Jovanovski will miss the Olympics due to surgery on his troubled groin/abdomen; this opens a spot for Maple Leafs (lack of) defence-man Bryan McCabe on the Team Canada roster. Should another member of the Team Canada defence squad succumb to injuries our lord and saviour The Dion Phaneuf is a likely candidate to head to Turino. Flames fans all know about the glory of The Dion Phaneuf and his dividing my zero capabilities so I don’t need to extol them. For more fantastic tales of our hero check out the “I can’t stop talking about Dion Phaneuf” thread that consistently makes its way back to the main page.
 
Next up – A trip back home (thank you) to face the Blue Jackets (uh thank you?). Game starts at 8 PM MST (TAKE NOTE) and you can listen to Pierre McGuire fall over himself to praise The Dion Phaneuf (as he should) on TSN. Also available in high quality AM sound on the Fan 960.

Lines –
 
Reinprecht – Lombardi – Invisible
Huselius – Langkow – Amonte
Kobasew - Yelle - McCarty
Simon - Nilson – Donovan

Leopold - Regehr
Giordano - Phaneuf
Ference - Warrener

Kiprusoff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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