You couldn’t have asked for a better performance from the Calgary Flames last night. In their 6-1 win over the struggling Phoenix Coyotes, every facet of the Flames game seemed to be unstoppable.
All night long poor Greztky looked frustrated and well he should. His team got their collective asses kicked in a game that was as close to a must-win as you can get in the month of October. Phoenix looked like a basement dwelling team often does; slow, out of synch, soft on the puck, and plagued by poor goaltending. (Although I thought Curtis played rather well in relief, but more on that later).
You have to have some sympathy for the Great One. I mean, he was the single greatest hockey player ever to strap on skates, and now he is the coach and part owner of one of the league's worst teams. His best player left the game with back spasms (Doan), and while I could mention how terrible the rest of the squad is, I won’t...
I won’t go into great detail on how he has some of the least liked hockey players in the professional ranks among his squad. I won’t talk about how loud mouthed JR and former tough guy Owen Nolan are not pulling their weight, even as darkhorses. I could mention that Jovo was chronically overrated when he played in Vancouver and now he is showing his true sub-par colours in the desert, but again, that just wouldn’t be right. I will not talk about how Comrie’s ability to break up a team from within is rivaled only by the size of his huge cantaloupe head. Lastly, I sure as hell won’t mention the former Flames cast-offs of Morris and Saprykin are one step away from working at the same gas station as Rico Fata.
I won’t do that though, I have too much respect for Wayne.
In the past couple of years, when the Flames were facing off against a team as weak as this one, the fans were usually treated to a ‘closer-than-it-should-be’ Flames win of 2-1. Not so on this night though.
The much maligned special teams play had a MONSTER game in particular. It all started just under 6 minutes into the contest when Chucky opened the scoring with the first of 3 powerplay goals on the night. (The Flames would eventually end up going 3 for 10 with the man advantage). Perhaps even better than the PP was the penalty kill, as the Flames shut out the Desert Dogs on all 9 of their powerplay advantages. In addition to being perfect of the PK, the boys in red took it one step further by tallying a short-handed goal on a two on none by Tony Amonte.
The fore-check was devastating, causing multiple turnovers and I am sure more than a few bruises on the Coyotes defensemen. Kipper was outstanding, absolutely robbing some chump dressed in white at one point in the game. (I don’t remember the specifics as I was yelling at the top of my lungs).
Dion was a tank as usual, rocking Nolan just inside the blue line, adding to his already huge highlight reel hits package. (Coming soon – Don Cherry’s Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em all Dion addition). Iggy had one of his trademark ‘faster than a speeding bullet’ wrist shots from inside the blue line to beat Cujo, and although he only garnered 2 assists, Damond was the games first star.
Of all the positives, in my opinion, the top three were:
1. Guys who need to score all notched one – Juice. Amonte, and Hammer all got their firsts.
2. Jarome shooting the puck more, he had a couple of really, really close calls to go with one beauty of a goal.
3. Kipper stopped 26 of 27 shots, and stood on his head whenever we needed him.
The toughest thing that we have to do now is keep this momentum up for three days until we face off against my least favorite team; the Nashville Predators.
GO FLAMES GO!
