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All we needed was a horn, lights, a bounce off the goalie’s mask, and a crossbar. That was the sequence of events for Kobasew who finally scored a funny goal to give Calgary a 2-1 win over Columbus.Calgary was down coming into the third, but Jarome Iginla scored early to give the Flames some life. Trailing 1-0 entering the third, Iginla scored his 13th goal at 4:10. Robyn Regehr’s shot from the blue-line hit Iginla in the leg as he screened Leclaire. The puck dropped down at his feet and he knocked it past Leclaire to tie the game.

Leclaire had kept the Flames offence at bay with some sensational goaltending. In one stretch in the second period, he came across the net to denyMarcus Nilson‘s shot from close in. Shortly after, Leclaire jabbed out his blocker to deflect away a dangerous slapshot from Kristian Huselius.

Luckily, the Flames didn’t stop working, outshooting Columbus 31-19 and doing some solid penalty kill work. A good character win against a team they should beat anyways. Next up Carolina at home Tuesday.

The Calgary Flames will honour one of the greatest players in team history by retiring goaltender Mike VernonÂ’s number 30. Does he deserver it? I’d say so, ’89 was the best year for the Flames and fans.

Vernon spent 13 seasons of his 20 year NHL career in Calgary. The Flames will pay tribute to Mike Vernon by raising his number 30 jersey to the rafters of the Pengrowth Saddledome in a pre-game ceremony when the Flames host the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday, February 6, 2007.

The only other player to have their number retired is Lanny. The next player will likely be Iginla if he retires a Flame. The rest of the ‘Flames’ greats will be retired by other teams no doubt.

What’s this? Almost 40 shots, a powerplay that works, a penalty kill that still sucks (5 on 3), yep, two steps forward today. The Flames took advantage of their powerplays today scoring three times.

Iginla started things off in the 1st period tipping in a Phanuef ‘this is how you pronounce my name–Dion’ point shot. Kiprusoff was off to his old self keeping the Flames ahead for the rest of the period. 1-0 at th end of 1.

The floodgates opened in the second as somehow the Flames started scoring on the powerplay. Nothing really change other than some hard work. Same point shot, same down low game. Albeit Colorado wasn’t playing their best, but hey, we’ll take it. 3 goals from Hamrlik, Lombardi, and Phanuef made it a 4-0 game.

Fast forward to the third and the Flames found themselves down 2 men. The obvious happened and Miikka’s shut out was snapped. The Flames didn’t let up and five minutes later Tanguay scored (wow, he actually shot the puck) to make it a 5-1 game. Colorado would later get 1 more but that was as close as they’d get.

Great forecheck all night long, the lines were clicking cause they were moving their feet. The Dome wasn’t full (if you don’t want to go to the game cause you’re cold then send them to me,) but the Flames were still energetic sensing the urgency to win this game.

Ice Chips: Props to MCcarty, not sure why he didn’t pound Laperierre when he had him tangled up, ended up taking a few shots. Nice to see Ritchie getting some good ice time too, he has wheels at least….Anybody catch the elbow against Friesen in the 1st period that blanked him out. Anyways, next up, Columbus comes to town. Another easy win we need to take.

Apparently the Flames just wanted a nice vacation. Right when the weather got tough the Flames went soft and hid in California. How else can you describe their weekend work? They didn’t win, so they have nothing to show but a nice tan. It’s also apparent that the Flames wanted to take two nights off, sleeping through games hardly mustering sustained offense. If this is really Jim Playfair’s new offense let’s see some change from the dump and chase that’s barely working as is.

It’s also apparent the coaching staff has little idea how to run a PP or PK. It’s surprising since the PK was a strong suit last year with Playfair around. With ‘Mumbles’ Preston still around (we didn’t have a bad PP last yaer) why aren’t things working? Well for starters the effort is non-existent. For millions of dollars it’s too much for smart and hard working hockey. Too often the Flames found themselves out worked on the man advantage. They managed a garbage goal with 40 seconds left on the PP, but that’s too little too late.

What’s even sadder is the defensive play that was supposedly turning around. For some reason it’s a good idea to play shotty defence taking two steps backwards instead one forward. All night the Flames were outworked in their own zone, giving up over 6 breakaways, 4 to Selanne, two of which he scored. Yes Mclennan could have done something better than stupid poke checks but hey, somebody adjust to the Ducks offence….Oh right, the Flames can’t do that these days.

Selanne and Ryan Getzlaf scored on power plays and Samuel Pahlsson also scored for the Ducks, who are off to the best start in franchise history at 17-2-6 and are tied with Buffalo for the most points in the league. Pronger and Francois Beauchemin each had two assists and Todd Marchant scored an empty-net goal.

Kristian Huselius had two goals and Daymond Langkow scored on a power play in the final minute for the Flames, whose 3-0 win over the Ducks on Nov. 10 in Calgary was Anaheim’s first loss in regulation after an NHL-record 12-0-4 start.

Jamie McLennan made 34 saves for Calgary. But the Flames had another tough night on the power play, and have only two goals in 21 chances over the last four games.

BTW, check out the forum we’re we’ll put up a ‘bash Selanne’ thread up. That guy shows how to play the game folks. You dive when you have the chance, whine to the refs, play hard, whine to the refs, make some good deaks, cheap shot, complaining to the media about players cheap shoting you, dive, whine to the refs, score some goals. It’s the way the game should be played, Ducks hockey.

The Calgary Flames managed to beat a struggling Chicago team in the second of back to back games that saw the Flames lose yesterday in Edmonton. Tonight, Calgary repeated their hard nosed forechecking to slowly grind away the opposition.

I was at this game and in all honestly it was just as boring as the Edmonton game the night before. The only difference was this time the Flames a) scored on the PP, Iginla finally did something out of the ordinary and sat in the slot, b) scored on their chances. This isn’t to say the Flames scored on all their chances, but they managed 3 goals and 1 empty netter against the Bulin-wall.

Lombardi scored off a nice feed from Huselius, much needed second line scoring is picking up, and Amonte potted a goal off a nice feed from Ritchie. Hardest working Flames would have to go to Ritchie, he was buzzing all night long. Nice to see that guy work hard and get some playing time.

Defensively the Flames are slowly returning to their true form. The 6 were solid all night and boring up front. The game was pretty much error free from a defensive standpoint. Iginla had two goals, Tanguay two assists, and the Flames push into 8th spot in the West. Not bad for a night’s work.

Some pictures of the game including a Harvey the Hound dance are located in the gallery. The last minute is also on tape where Iginla scores the empty netter. Next up, Saturday against LA and Sunday against Anaheim. The Flames get away just when the bad weather rolls around. Look for Mclennan to get in for LA.

The battle of Alberta finally got on track with the same old same old. Actually this time, it was pretty boring. For almost the entire game the Oilers had trouble answering to the Flames consistent forecheck, but in this league you actually have to score occasionally.

All it takes is one break down in coverage, one bad save, to lose a game. That’s what happened late in the third period when Sykora picked up a bad rebound all alone to put the Oilers ahead.

One would think the battle of Alberta would be a hard hitting affair. Nope, not this time though. The only penalties were for hooking, 7 of them, for Calgary. How many powerplay goals? None? You’d think the coaches would put together a package that involves more than dump and chase and point shot. It’s been the same since 2004. Any team with half a coach would design something to take advantage of cheating forwards on the powerplay.

Anyways, blown opportunities (there weren’t many) and inability to score dealt the Flames a blow today. The good news? 7 straight at home coming up which means a chance to get back on track in a hurry. Unfortunately, this was a 4 point game as the Oilers are now 5 points ahead of the Flames but we have 2 games in hand.

Next up, Chicago. I’ll be at this game so look for some pics tomorrow. Giordano was called up as well, look for him to get into the lineup as Zyuzin took a puck to the foot in the 2nd and never came back.

Mark Giordano was sent down today.

Things are slowly coming together, slowly. The Flames put together another ‘almost’ solid effort to steal 2 points from a St Louis team that looked like 2005′s club. From puck drop the Flames dominated the opposition in the sold out ‘Dome.

It didn’t take long for the top line of Iggy-Lanks (Langkow)-Tanks (Tanguay) to score off a pretty tic-tac-toe play. Both Iginla and Tanguay had 2 point nights. The trio almost reconnected on a similar play but Tanguay was robbed point blank. The refs did go upstairs but the results were inconclusive, Sanford’s glove was behind the goal line, and you could see the puck, but it wasn’t ‘conclusive’.

The play exchange back and forth until the third period when Huselius of all people showed his penalty killing ability by breaking down on a breakaway to score a pretty top shelf goal against Legace who came into relief for Sandford midway through the 1st period.

The top line, get this, scored a powerplay goal to make it 3-0 after another pretty passing play where Tanguay spotted Ference sneaking in down low for the easy tap in. Miikka Kiprusoff was sharp again collecting his 3rd shutout of the season.

Next up, the Flames play against a tougher club in the Detroit Red Wings. Anything is possible for this club as they seek their season high 6th consecutive win this Friday.

The Calgary Flames are on another November winning streak thanks to Matt Cooke.  “I didn’t see him coming, he hits hard, and he got me good there,” said Iginla, who challenged Cooke twice, but said he didn’t have a problem with the hit. “It was clean, but it doesn’t make you feel good. I don’t know if you want to say it woke me up, but it definitely gets you more into it.”

Jarome Iginla single handedly sparked a comeback with a goal and an assist, and Kristian Huselius scored with 3:32 left to rally the Flames to 3-2 victory. Guess who scored the game tying goal? Rhett Warrener frmo a nice feed off Alex Tanguay’s stick (who also added two assists) as Calgary won its fourth straight game.

Mclennan was though to be in line for another start (maybe St Louis? nah.) but Miikka Kiprusoff made 26 saves for the Flames, who are back at .500 after starting the season 3-7-2. Calgary was 4-7-2 in October last season before eight straight victories in November sparked a Division title.

Kiprusoff was back in goal one night after a 37-save shutout to end Anaheim’s NHL-record of 16 games with at least a point to start a season. After getting beat twice in the first period against Vancouver, he stopped the final 16 shots, including several great saves off Markus Naslund.

Kiprusoff got a bit of a break when Marc Chouinard hit the inside of the post less than a minute before Iginla put Calgary on the board, and again when Matt Cooke hit the post on a spinning backhand from the side of the net with 26 seconds left.

Huselius scored the winner, one-timing a backhand shot through a screen, over Luongo’s glove, and just under the cross bar after Matthew Lombardi skated around defenseman Lukas Krajicek and dropped the puck into the slot.

“Iggy had a couple of shifts where he took over and that was the difference,” said Warrener, adding his first goal of the season was sweeter because it came after a giveaway led to the Canucks second goal. “It was nice to get that back I wasn’t feeling too good, but the forwards made a nice play to just get it out there an I kind of whacked at it like I always do and it went in.”

Yes, go Flames, that’s the kind of hockey we like to see, albeit it was a lazy display in the first two periods…. NExt up St Louis back at home TUesday.

It’s not the 7th game all over again, but we’ll take it. The Calgary Flames snapped the unbeaten streak of the Anaheim Ducks with a solid 3-0 win. Miikka collected his 2nd shut out of the season, saving over 35 shots in a game that saw every Duck player crash the net. The referees were terrible with their inability to call over half a dozen intentional crease crashes, but hey, the joke of the league that is the NHL won’t do anything till someone gets decapitated.

Enough complaining. The 1st period saw all the scoring, within 20 seconds. Langkow broke down the wing after a nice criss-cross with Iginla and got a lucky bounce off a deflection. 1-0 Flames. 19 seconds later Amonte continued his goal scoring streak with an identical goal he scored against Dallas on Tuesday.

After the win in St. Louis a number of fans cried, “ah, the ship is turning around, finally.” Others, like myself, were more cautious, saying that after Dallas and Anaheim we’ll get a better idea of what the Flames are like. Well November may prove to be a very nice month again for the Flames as they beat both Dallas and Anaheim, have a good chance against Vancouver tomorrow so long as Jamie M doesn’t crap his pants in goal and then St. Louis on Tuesday. Both are winnable games so let’s hope for another 4 points.

The defensive game looked shotty at times, Phaneuf had a nice fight, same with Prust, but over 15 giveaways in the 2nd period made their zone coverage look really really weak. Hopefully they start to put things together quicker, i.e. Warrener playing better, man that guy is struggling. Anyways, see you tomorrow, CBC, 8PM!