For one night anyway, they were The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight.
On a night when Kerry Fraser's refereeing was the talking point after the game, the Calgary Flames produced one of their more complete performances of the playoffs in last night's fourth game of the Stanley Cup final. They were aggressive on the fore-check, won most of the one-on-one battles deep in the zones and mostly outplayed the Tampa Bay Lightning.
There was only one problem. Whenever they found themselves in a position to test Lightning goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, they made it too easy on him by missing the net.
In the first period, Jarome Iginla crossed up Khabibulin by feeding a pass to line-mate Martin Gelinas on a two-on-one, but Gelinas -- caught off guard, as well -- missed wide left.
In the second period, Jordan Leopold cruised down the middle and was open in the slot, but hesitated a split second and had his shot tipped into the netting.
Minutes later, Oleg Saprykin, nicely set up for a one-timer by Chuck Kobasew, drove a 20-foot slap shot into the end boards. Gelinas missed a tip-in on a first-period power play and Ville Nieminen, sent in short-handed by a soft curling backhand pass from Marcus Nilson, couldn't score, either.
It went like that all night. Calgary carried the play to Tampa, but either mishandled the puck on the rush or couldn't finish from in tight.
"From our club's point of view, we've got to be more determined," Iginla said. "Khabibulin made some good saves, but we didn't make it hard enough on him and some of our shots missed the net. We've got to make it a lot harder on him."
The Lightning scored a goal 2 minutes 48 seconds into the game and made it stand up for a 1-0 win, squaring the best-of-seven Stanley Cup final at two games apiece.
"In the second period, we had great chances, but we missed the net," Flames coach Darryl Sutter said. "I can think of two right off the top of my head. That's what it's about. It's a one-goal hockey game. You have to bear down on the opportunities that present themselves against two teams that aren't going to give you many chances."
The turning point came in the second minute of play when defenceman Mike Commodore and right winger Chris Clark drew minor penalties on the same sequence, Commodore for tackling Fredrik Modin in front of the net, Clark for crosschecking Nolan Pratt on the delayed penalty. Seconds before, Iginla had been crosschecked from behind, with no call, which prompted the sellout crowd at the Saddledome to jeer Fraser's work in no uncertain terms.
Fraser is not a popular figure in these parts, dating back to a controversial call he made 15 years ago, during Calgary's last visit to the Stanley Cup final. On the night of May 19, 1989, Fraser called a penalty in double overtime against the Flames' Mark Hunter, which led to a power-play goal from Montreal's Ryan Walter and a 4-3 win for the Canadiens in Game 3. In an era when penalties were rarely called in overtime, the Hunter call came out of nowhere and afterward, Hunter had to be physically restrained by his teammates from going after Fraser.
In the 1994 playoffs against the Vancouver Canucks, Fraser called a series of goaltender interference penalties against the Flames' Gary Roberts, all in the same game. The third time it happened, Canucks goaltender Kirk McLean, a friend of Roberts from their days in Whitby, Ont., leaned in and said with a smile, "He's got you again, Robs."
No one was laughing last night, however, as the Lightning predictably took advantage of their two-man, two-minute power play, with Brad Richards rifling a shot from the top of the face-off circle past Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff.
That goal completed a statistical trifecta. Tampa is 7-0 in the playoffs when Richards scores a goal; 7-0 when leading after one period; and 11-2 when scoring first.
For Richards, it was also his record-setting seventh game-winning goal of the playoffs.
"Ugly as hell," assessed Lightning coach John Tortorella, "but we found a way."
Tortorella originally put all his scoring eggs in one basket, playing Richards with Martin St. Louis and Lecavalier a handful of times in the first period. Later, he switched them, depending upon the defensive assignments. Ben Clymer and Martin Cibak, who had played only three playoff games between them, played because of injuries to Ruslan Fedotenko and Pavel Kubina.
This was a game Calgary needed to win, should have won, but ultimately didn't. If the Stanley Cup parade takes place on Channelside Drive in Tampa instead of on the Red Mile, it may come down to this lost opportunity.