Like a cracker to the starving.
That might be the only way to describe the Flames offensive "outburst" against the Avs last night. Four goals ain't much to many teams, but it's a vertiable avalanche (ironic pun intended) of offense for the Flames. Consider that Calgary also had a potential goal waved off as well as 3 posts on the night and that means that the Flames came within a hair of nearly doubling their post-Olympic offensive production last night. Whew. Now we have to find ways to keep it going...
Of course, Calgary did manage to find a way to turn a potential blow-out victory into a one goal cardiac arrest (as usual). Posts and non-goals aside, The Flame's 3rd period pseudo-collapse can be forgiven because:
1.) They still won the game
2.) The avalanche have a very good first line
3.) The refs sucked
Nice to see players like Huselius, Leopold and Iginla look genuinely DANGEROUS in the offensive zone again. Not to mention the continued improvement of Chris Simon. Part of that is probably due to Sutter playing him with fast, water-bug like players such as Kobasew and Lombardi...a cunning strategem to be sure! Let's hope all four of these players continue to play like this more or less consistently for the rest of the year...
On a "salt-in-the-wound" kind of note, Vancouver lost their 4th straight last night. Baha.
Positives:
- Finally find a way to score. PLEASE KEEP DOING THIS.
- Iginla had a much better contest, scoring twice and was robbed of the hat-trick by a post. His defensive zone coverage on the 3rd Colorado goal left something to be desired, but...
- Stephane Yelle. Was also robbed by the post in the early going. Made a game-saving play in the last 2 minutes to draw a penalty and negate a Colorado PP.
- Chris Simon. Very effective in the offensive zone. Great pass to set-up the GWG.
Negatives:
- Nearly collapse under the weight of a 3 goal lead. Still lacking killer instinct.
- Dion Phaneuf. A less than stellar night for the rookie. Nearly made a fatal error in the late 3rd, but was saved by the PK heroics of Yelle.
- Officiating. 2 Holding-the-stick calls lead to 2 Av's goals. First was a non-call which was missed. Perpetrated by Tanguay on Ference (lead to Sakic goal). Second was a nominal call against Nilson (Avs score on PP). It's inconsistency like this that drives people crazy. Even Sutter was yelling at the refs last night.
Next up - The Flames look to extend the Oiler's woes on Thursday...
