The Canucks have one chant, it’s ‘Calgary sucks’. The poor boobs in vancouver can’t think of anything smarter. Alas, they can chant whatever they want because it’s true, Calgary does suck, but tonight it was the PP, and not necessarily the entire game.

And Dion Phaneuf. He sucked too.

Calgary has gon 0 for the last 37 chances on the powerplay. Tonight they had two 5v3 chances.

They were close, but they were oh so far.

Fast forward to the second period where Calgary was maintaining possession in the Vancouver zone. They did this for much the night, but when it came time to score, either the Flames shot wide or hit a post, or Luongo made huge saves.

You had a sense midway through the 2nd when the score was 1-0 Vancouver that this was Calgary game. Until the last five minutes they literally put in one of their best road performances. Only problem, puck wasn’t going into the net.

Actually two problems, the PP was HORRIFIC. THIS IS A PROBLEM. It’s not a cofidence factor as the coach says. It’s a HUGE problem of SYSTEM. The Flames have no clue what to do, it’s time to hit the drawing board!

Calgary did tie it up when the top line cashed in. It could have been the start of assuring first place given how Calgary dominated the play.

However, on the opening faceoff after Calgary tied it Vancouver poured on the pressure. Inexplicably Dion Phaneuf put in the worst shift of his career. With his notorious ‘I defend with one hand on the my stick’, rather than fishing out the puck from the corner, let the Canuck player past him. Possession lost he then followed all the way to the POINT where the puck was promptly shot on goal. Everyone out of position because of Phaneuf but it should have been an easy Kipper save. Not so, Phaneuf stuck his stick out, with one hand of course, and deflected the puck into his own goal.

High five, 20 seconds after Calgary ties the dumbest shift you’ll ever see.

It’s too bad. Again, Calgary put it in a great road effort, but their PP and some untimely shifts destroyed the team. Weighing the problems we’ll have to conclude the PP is the single greatest factor preventing the Flames from turning the corner at this point.

They MUST win against the Oilers Friday and Sat to have a chance of staying in 3rd and not dropping to 5th to play Chicago (who beat the Flames by 6 a couple times this season already).