Takin’ Care of Business
November 6th, 2009 | by James Duplacey |…and workin’ overtime
“A good road trip for us. To come out with four points, that’s huge. To win these close games, it’s nice.” – Miikka Kiprusoff
For the second consecutive night, the Calgary Flames put the darts of distraction caused by flu-gate behind them, took out the lunch buckets, strapped on the work boots and worked overtime to grab a much-needed four points on their two-game road trip to middle America.
The Flames used a similar blueprint – nimble netminding, beneficial bounces and opportunistic overtime offense – to capture both ends of the back-to-back sojourn.
On Wednesday evening, seldom-seen backup goaltender Curtis McElhinney was peeled off the pine and put between the pipes to replace Miikka Kiprusoff, who was suffering from an ironic bout of the flu bug. McElhinney turned the performance of his career, swatting aside 38 pucks in backstopping the Flames to an electrifying 3-2 overtime victory. The Colorado College-product was sensational against the Stars, making a larcenous kick save against Mike Modano in the opening period and a similarly scintillating stop on a Brenden Morrow penalty shot in the middle stanza.
Captain Jarome Iginla, sporting a multi-colored shiner beneath his right eye attained during Monday’s peddle-to-the-mettle practice, scored a pair of goals, including the extra session clincher. Iginla, his ears still ringing from coach Sutter’s ringing reprimand, also set up Daymond Langkow’s tying tally with less than 60 ticks on the regulation time clock.
A rested and obviously cured Kipper the Keeper returned to his post against St. Louis on Thursday and stoned the Blues with a variety of rapier-like glove grabs and terrific toe saves. Kiprusoff kicked aside 30 of the 31 missiles directed his way, allowing only freshman Lars Eller’s first NHL goal to elude his grasp.
Once again, Jarome Iginla fueled the Flames. Early in the opening period, Captain Courageous snatched a pass from Olli Jokinen and streaked in behind the Blues defense. St. Louis goaltender Chris Mason actually blocked Iggy’s wrist shot but his wild attempt to sweep the puck off the goal line and out of the crease deflected off Blues defenseman Eric Brewer and into the gaping cage.
Unlike their Wednesday night effort that saw the swift-skating Stars continually pressure the Flames defense into committing sloppy slip-ups, the Flames played a consistent, patient and poised game on Thursday, out hustling and out shooting the Blues by a narrow 32-31 margin. The last shot registered on that ledger and the margin of difference on both the shot clock and the scoreboard was a whining whistler off the stick of Dion Phaneuf that pin-balled it’s way past Mason.
The victory was Calgary’s third overtime win of the year in four attempts.
