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CALGARY — In the first game of a three-game mini-series against the Vancouver Canucks with heavy playoff implications, the Calgary Flames' Alex Tanguay had it figured this way: "This time of year, it often comes down to who wants it the most," suggested Tanguay. "We have to make sure we want it more than they do."
For the better part of 20 minutes, it was pretty clearly Vancouver that wanted it more. The Canucks raced out to an early 2-0 lead, on the strength of 21 shots in a one-sided first-period, but couldn't hold on in the face of a furious Calgary counter-attack.
The Flames scored two power-play goals in a span of 41 seconds in the third period to rally for a dramatic 3-2 win over an appreciative sellout crowd of 19,289 at the Pengrowth Saddledome.
With the come-from-behind victory, the Flames moved past the Minnesota Wild into first place in the Northwest Division with 90 points.
Dion Phaneuf hits Vancouver's Ryan Kesler in the first period. (Patrick Price/Reuters)
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- Calgary Flames
- Nashville Predators
- Vancouver Canucks
- Adrian Aucoin
- Dustin Boyd
- Alex Burrows
- Kristian Huselius
- Jarome Iginla
- Curtis Joseph
- Miikka Kiprusoff
- Ilya Kovalchuk
- Daymond Langkow
- Roberto Luongo
- Markus Naslund
- Owen Nolan
- Alexander Ovechkin
- Dion Phaneuf
- Taylor Pyatt
- Daniel Sedin
- Alex Tanguay
- Jim Vandermeer
"That one feels good," said Flames' captain Jarome Iginla, who ignited the comeback with his 49th goal of the season.
"I thought in the first period, we ended up being a little tentative, probably because we were overexcited. I thought we settled in between periods and just kept coming. We just kept believing that we were going to get that tying goal."
The Flames actually received both the tying and winning goals in a 41-second span of the third period, as the Canucks ran into penalty problems in the face of Calgary's aggressive play.
Already playing one man short, the Canucks' Taylor Pyatt hooked Iginla to the ice rather than give up a one-on-one scoring chance, providing Calgary with a two-man advantage. Just as that was running out, Alex Burrows made an error in judgment, deliberately knocking the net behind Roberto Luongo off its moorings, to relieve the pressure.
The two-man advantage restored, the Flames tied the game on Daymond Langkow's tip-in, expertly set up by Tanguay's centring pass. Seconds later, the Flames caught the Canucks on a line change, with Dion Phaneuf rifling a rising shot over Luongo's right shoulder, for the game-winning goal.
"I tried to beat him up top," said Phaneuf, "and he came out and luckily I got it up quick enough over him."
"I don't think you'd see a guy, very often, beat me from there with a clean shot," said Luongo, "but he has one of the hardest shots in the league and he got all of it and put it in the right spot"
Luongo was asked: What happened to change the momentum in the game so rapidly?
"I wish I had the answer for you, but I don't," said Luongo. "I just try to do my job out there and make saves. Obviously, I needed to make one extra save tonight to give our team a point."
Canucks defenceman Sami Salo figured that the problem stemmed from too many turnovers, beginning in the second period.
"We turned so many pucks over, it's tough to get anything going when you're defending all the time," said Salo. "That kind of changed the momentum of the game."
After their glacially slow start, the Flames turned the tables on the Canucks in the second period, out-shooting them 18-3 and thoroughly dominating the proceedings, but only getting one shot past Luongo.
Markus Naslund and Daniel Sedin scored goals for Vancouver 11 seconds apart in the opening period to account for the Canucks offence.
On a night when the Flames benched their second-leading scorer, Kristian Huselius, in anticipation of a physical game, they got their wish in the first five seconds of play.
Jim Vandermeer, a defenceman playing left wing to start the game, was already fencing with his Canucks counterpart, Taylor Pyatt, before they even dropped the puck for the opening face-off.
The two squared off in an epic punch-up and both ended up with fighting majors. It was Calgary's 68th fight of the season, tying them with the Anaheim Ducks for the league lead. A year ago, the Ducks became the first team since the Philadelphia Flyers of the Broad St. Bullies era to win the Stanley Cup and lead the NHL in fighting. The Flames, who've upped their aggressiveness as the season progressed, clearly think they can follow suit.
Against the Canucks, they dressed three forwards who'd scored only a single goal this season, three others with three goals, and one with six, ahead of Huselius, who has 24, or six more than the other seven players combined.
The problem with playing a pointedly aggressive style is that occasionally, you can run into penalty problems, which is what happened to Calgary in the first. Referees Don Koharski and Kelly Sutherland called it close all the way through, and sent Flames players off four times, compared to just the one for Vancouver. Eventually, Naslund made them pay.
With Ryan Kesler providing traffic in front of goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff, Naslund gathered up the rebound of an Alexander Edler shot, skated across the crease until he found an opening and calmly deposited the puck in the middle of the net.
Eleven seconds later, just off the ensuing face-off, Kiprusoff spoiled an otherwise excellent performance by mishandling Sedin's centring pass from a bad angle, fumbling it right into his own net.
Otherwise, Kiprusoff played a spectacular period, as the Canucks showed excellent movement on their power play and were a little unlucky not to extend their lead.
The 21 shots surrendered by Calgary in the first represented a season high.
It was a completely different story in the second, as the Flames took away the momentum with a strong early shift from Iginla's line that finally resulted in a goal. After extended pressure in the Canucks zone, Wayne Primeau and Langkow eventually combined to poke a loose puck through the crease to Iginla, who slipped in off the left wing and practically skated it into the net.
The Canucks will make up their game in hand on the Flames tonight in Colorado against the Avalanche and then finish off their three-game road trip with a Friday date against the Minnesota Wild, before playing Calgary twice more in the final week of the season.
