3
CALGARY — Mike Keenan was asked about Jarome Iginla's scoring slump which – to be fair, is not much of a slump at all, given that it is just the one game that the Calgary Flames' captain has gone without a scoring point and two games without a goal.
But on Masters Sunday, Keenan invoked the spirit of Tiger Woods, noting how Iginla “reminds me of Tiger – a bogey on the first hole and then he's going to birdie the rest of the 17. I'm looking forward to it.”
Does Keenan expect eagles, not just birdies out of those two?
“Probably a couple of those somewhere along the line too,” answered Keenan.
Related Articles
Iginla and the Flames play the third game of their best-of-seven Western Conference quarter-final series against the San Jose Sharks Sunday night in Calgary, their first home game in more than two weeks, after the Juno Awards bumped them out of the Pengrowth Saddledome for the final week of the regular season.
Normally, a Calgary regular-season crowd can be fairly sedate, but it changes in the playoffs, something centre Craig Conroy figured might give the team an adrenalin boost. The teams have been off two days since splitting the first two games of the series in San Jose last week.
“Oh yeah, it's exciting,” said Conroy, of the night-and-day difference between regular-season and playoff crowds. “You sit in here and you hear the fans when you come out for warm-up and it is a huge advantage. In the regular season, it can be a little quiet here, but come playoffs, that Sea of Red, it gives you goose bumps when you walk out. “Everybody's got the red on: businessmen, kids, moms, you name it, they've all got some kind of red on and we appreciate that. It's so loud, it's almost deafening – when the national anthem's sung. We do get an extra boost, especially starting the game.”
And a strong start is something both teams were seeking. Sharks' coach Ron Wilson noted how even the worst teams in the league, if they scored first, win 80 per cent of the time. The best teams, he suggested, won 90 per cent of the time, after scoring the first goal – and through Saturday's playoff action, it has been 100 per cent of the time, according to Wilson's stats log.
“It's a remarkable stat,” said Wilson, who suggested that while the trend can't continue forever, “it's amazing the psychological impact of the first goal.”
Thus far in the series, there has been very little scoring of any kind. Calgary won the opener 3-2; San Jose responded with a 2-0 shutout victory the next night. The leading scorer in the series is the Sharks' Ryan Clowe, with three points. Iginla has two assists; his Sharks' counterpart Joe Thornton, just the one.
That has as much to do with the exceptional work by the goaltenders, Calgary's Miikka Kiprusoff and the Sharks' Evgeni Nabokov, as anything. Kiprusoff has a .951 save percentage; Nabokov .932. Both of those exceed the NHL's regular-season save-percentage leader, Dan Ellis of the Nashville Predators at .924.
Wilson said he wasn't worried about Thornton's limited production, noting: “If Kipper makes all the saves, (Thornton's) not going to get any assists. Just as I'm sure, they're concerned that Jarome Iginla hasn't scored a goal. It's not that easy. Teams win. It's not individuals – although goaltenders probably have the biggest influence on games in our sport, as opposed to a forward. The goaltender can neutralize anything. Generally, it's like baseball. Great pitching will neutralize great hitting every time. If the pitcher is on, nobody's going to touch him. It's that simple. And if the goalie's on, and he's seeing things, our job is to screen and crowd and make Kipper's life miserable and I'm sure that's what they're saying about Nabby too.
“If we can keep the puck out of our end the way we have generally speaking for the first couple of games, that's makes it harder for them to do that – if that's what they want to do – and easier for us. If we spend more time in their end and have more puck possession, we can dictate how crowded it can be in front of Kipper.”
Nor is Iginla concerned about no goals in the first two games.
“You just want to help win the game,” he said. “Whatever it is, if it's 1-0 and I've got nothing, great – or if it's 5-4, whatever it is, it's just about wins. We're coming home. We're coming off a loss. We definitely look at ourselves, as if we've got to keep improving in this series, and as a team. I look at myself I want to be better than I was last game. That goes around our room. This is the time of year when we want to be our best. Part of my job is to get to the front of the net, help produce some offence and I'm going to work at trying to do that.”
A year ago, the Flames came home after losing two lopsided games in Detroit and the prospects looked grim. This year, at 1-1, there is a sense that they have a more realistic chance of engineering an upset.
“They've had more shots than us, but in quality scoring chances, we're similar,” said Conroy. “Nabokov made some great saves [in the second game] – or we could easily have been up two in the first period.
“Last year? Detroit put us behind the eight-ball early; they dominated the games on us. Everything they did kept us from getting into a rhythm or flow. Then we got it back to even and went back to Detroit, but mentally, we were so fragile on the road last year, that didn't help. All that combined, it just wasn't a good atmosphere for us. But this year? You know what? We're 1-1. It's Game 3 tonight, let's get it done.”
