Colorado..3
Calgary….4

(AP PHOTO/CP, Jeff McIntosh via Yahoo! Sports)
The Calgary Flames didn’t last long out of first place in their division. They avenged their loss last night in Colorado by beating the Avalanche at home in Calgary tonight.

Jarome Iginla wasted little time in motivating the Flames back into first place, opening the scoring midway through the first period. Iginla added a second goal to start the 2nd period, giving Calgary a 3-0 lead. Bryan Marchment and Chuck Kobasew also scored for the Flames.

“We didn’t like the way we woke up this morning and saw they had jumped ahead of us,” Iginla said. “That’s what makes these back-to-backs so much fun is if you lose, you get a chance to get right back at it.”

But the road back to top spot in the Northwest Division didn’t come easily. Colorado scored 3 goals in the third period to put the pressure on Calgary. Again, it was Colorado’s top line that did all their scoring. Joe Sakic, Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay had third-period goals for the Avalanche.

Chuck Kobasew came up with a big goal to give Calgary some buffer with 3:54 left in the game. It was the game winner.

“Like I said last week when we had 20 games left, we need 20 big goals,” Flames coach Darryl Sutter said. “It’s not how many goals or any of that stuff, the stats and all that is for you guys, it’s about scoring big goals and the biggest goal tonight was Chuck’s.”

Calgary has 3 games at hand over Colorado with 18 games left in their regular season. The Flames will now embark on a 7-game road trip that will take them to Edmonton, Nashville, Minnesota, St. Louis, Columbus and Dallas. They will then return home for 7 of their last 11 games.

Scoring Summary

1st Period
CGY:Iginla (29) A: Leopold, Langkow
CGY: Marchment (1) A: McCarty, Yelle

2nd Period
CGY: Iginla (30) A: Huselius, Langkow

3rd Period
COL: Sakic (24) A: Tanguay, Brisebois
COL: Hejduk (20) A: McLean, Turgeon
CGY: Kobasew (17) A: Simon, Lombardi
COL: Tanguay (26) A: Blake, Turgeon