Alberts vs. Jackman. Photo by Mike Ridewood/Getty Images
Jarome Iginla scored the shootout winner and Miikka Kiprusoff stopped 29 of 31 shots to lead the Calgary Flames to a 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks tonight.
The Flames opened the scoring at 17:23 of the first period when Mike Cammalleri scored his 12th goal of the season with a backhander/deflection off the leg that beat Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo. They extended the lead early in the 2nd period as Roman Horak took a pass from Lance Bowma and snapped a shot over Luongo’s left shoulder to put Calgary up 2-0.
For a few minutes, the Flames maintained their game, but as time wound down in the 2nd period, the all-to-familiar collapse happened. With just under 3 minutes remaining in the period, Cody Hodgson jumped on a rebound and back-handed the puck past Kiprusoff.
The comeback was completed 8 minutes into the third period thanks to a fortuitous bounce. Dan Hamhuis shot the puck from the point and it ricocheted off Blake Comeau right onto David Booth’s stick. Kipper, who had been playing the point shot, was out of position and Booth had a wide open net to shoot the puck into.
Despite their best efforts, the Canucks couldn’t beat Kiprusoff again and Luongo came up with a big save on Jarome Iginla’s breakaway attempt late in the game. So regulation time ended with a 2-2 deadlock. It looked like there would be a repeat of the Phoenix game when Jay Bouwmeester took a holding penalty 55 seconds into overtime. Luckily for the Flames, Daniel Sedin hauled down Scott Hannan just 8 seconds later, negating the powerplay.
Overtime ended up being a back-and forth event, but solved nothing, so the game went to a shootout. Jokinen and Iggy scored for the Flames and Kipper stopped two of three Canucks shooters to give the Flames an important 2 points.
The win bumps Calgary up to 9th place in the Western Conference, 2 points back from Phoenix and 3 points back from 7th place LA Kings. While this is a much-needed win, the battle doesn’t stop here for the Flames. They have 26 games left in the regular season and will need to get at least 30 more points if they hope to have a chance at making the post-season.
Here are the game highlights
Greg is the founder of Red Mile Blog has been following the Flames through good times and bad since they arrived in Calgary in the early 80s. He has written hundreds of articles on the Flames since 2005 and considers himself an expert on hockey inconsistency and frustration. He shoots right and usually plays defence, but has been known to jump up in the rush. He is a 2-time CAHL men's league champion and knows the sweet taste of beer from a Cup.
