Big Fall on the Home Stand

Flames snuffed by Red Wings

“The puck doesn’t have legs on it, it isn’t going to come to you. You’ve got to get after it and win battles. I just didn’t think Jarome (Iginla) and Glennie (Curtis Glencross) had their better games tonight and that’s the bottom line.” - Coach Brent Sutter

The Calgary Flames completed their longest home stand of the 2009-10 season in disappointing fashion, dropping a 3-1 decision to the injury-depleted Detroit Red Wings to finish the five-game Saddledome stretch with a 3-2 record.

Many of the same troubles that have plagued the club in the first quarter of the campaign were evident on Saturday night as the team was unable to contain the swift-skating Wings or interrupt the flow of Detroit’s patented puck control game.

Despite a Herculian effort by Miikka Kiprusoff – Kipper the Keeper was magnificent again, blocking 27 of the 29 pucks directed his way – the Flames were a step slow and a shot behind for most of the evening, ineffective on offense and tentative on defense. Calgary mustered only 20 shots at Detroit’s Chris Osgood, a disappointingly low total given the frightful way the Motown veteran has been fighting the puck most of the season.

Press box prognosticators had predicted that the lengthy stand at home would give the coaching staff ample opportunity to preach what they practiced. While there was one notable improvement – shot totals against were down – the inability of the team to play a consistent 60-minute game, eliminate defensive zone breakdowns and cut off the passing lanes in front of Kiprusoff continues to be alarming.

Anatomy of a Home Stand

Record: 3 wins, two losses
Goals for: 19; power-play goals for: 3; short-handed goals for: 2
Goals against: 14; power-play goals against: 5; short-handed goals against: 1

Balanced Beam: The Flames’ 19 goals on the home stand were scored by 13 different players – Nigel Dawes led all Calgary snipers with three goals in the five-game stretch.

Top Ten: The Flames record before after their back-to-back losses was 7-2-1, which equaled the club’s best 10-game start to a season, tying the mark set by the 2001-02 edition of the team.

Backside Broadsided: The blueliners accounted for only three of the Flames 19 goals in the past five games although Robyn Regehr registered an assist in each of the quintet of matches for a career-best five-game points streak.

Momentum Modifications: The Flames simply surrender too many clustered goals. In three of the five games, the team allowed two goals in a span of less than a minute. Vancouver scored two goals in 39 seconds, Columbus scored a pair in 48 seconds and Detroit fired home their brace of bolts in 59 seconds.

Defensive Disruptions: In the loss to Colorado, the Flames defense parted like the Red Sea, allowing Avalanche forward Wojtek Wolski to skate unimpeded through the slot and flick home the winning tally. In the final minute of Saturday’s loss to Detroit, Dion Phaneuf’s errant pass was gobbled up by Red Wing opportunist Kirk Maltby, who quickly deposited his gift into the vacated cage.

Lead Bleeds: In both of the two losses on the home stand, the Flames took the lead but swiftly surrendered their advantage. Colorado fell behind 2-0 in the opening 75 seconds of the game but leveled the match by the 17:00 minute mark of the opening frame and won the affair in the third period. After the Flames took a 1-0 lead in the middle frame against Detroit, the Wings needed less than a minute to tie the game and take a lead they would never relinquish.

Flame Flicks:

Dustin Boyd – who returned to the lineups after a four-day stay on the sidelines with the flu – saw 15 minutes of action and recorded a pair of shots on goal.

The Flames were out shot 30-21, the ninth time in 11 games they have been on the negative side of that statistical column.

For the second straight game – both losses – the Flames were involved in a tame game. Only six infractions being whistled by the men-in-stripes tandem of Tim Peel and Kelly Sutherland.

The forward combo of Jarome Iginla, Curtis Glencross and Craig Conroy managed only two shots on goal and were a combined (-4) for the evening.

Tags: Craig Conroy, Dustin Boyd, Jarome Iginla, Kirk maltby, Miikka Kiprusoff, Nigel Dawes, Robin Regehr