Iginla who? I’m joking, but the third game of his absence the Flames for some reason lack defensively but are tremendous putting pucks in the net. It also seems that every night the Flames have new heroes to thank.
Let’s give a run down of the Flames night. It started off slow, Giordano getting into penalty trouble. Actually the Flames would see themselves give up 5 power plays and surrender 3 goals. Not exactly an adjustment towards good defence. Giordano gave up another penalty in the 1st that and the Avs scored yet again making it 2-1. Let back up for a second and check out the goals one by one.
1. Hamrlik after nice cycling by the first line rings one off the post. This comes 5 minutes after Phanuef beat up Lapierre after a solid hit along the boards. Funny thing is, Phaneuf had Godard within inches who would have happily taken care of business.
2. 2 minutes after the Hamrlik goal the Avs powerplay, although scoring three, gave up tons of chances for the Flames. They managed to score twice, Huselius on a breakaway in the 1st put the Flames up 2-1.
Back to Girodano, who took another soft penalty and gave the Avs a chance to tie. He would later respond with two points of his own, but I say give Zyuzin a crack, maybe things will tighten up defensively.
3. Second period now, tied game, and guess who? Mr goal man Moss scores his 5th goal off a nice Tanguay feed for his 5th in 10 games. Things were pretty quiet after the first two minutes, but then the Flames got into penalty trouble again.
4. Penalties meant one thing in this game, SH goals. The Avs couldn’t figure out the Flames forecheck and ended up letting Langkow break in along the wing. He shot a puck off the facemask of Budaj and putting his own rebound in the net.
5. 2 minutes later guess who? Yea you guessed it, Langkow again, off a nice feed from Tanguay capping a 2-1 break.
6. Not to be outdone Amonte got his goal for the first line. That means four points for Lankgow. It also meant Theodore, who replaced Budaj after 5 goals, faced 2 shots and let one in. By the way, this was only the second period.
Fast forward to the third period now and the Flames needed to tighten up their defensive game and stay out of the box. That they did, and by the way:
7. Huselius with his second off a nice feed from Nilson. Why oh why the Avs D suck so bad we don’t know, but the win, we’ll take.
Notes: Lundmark, Mccarty, Zyzuin all sat. Godard and Nilson played. This may be bad news for the Flames, embarassing the Avs, since we play them 6 more times.
