The Two-Line Pass

The Lead

You may or may not have gotten the memo on this, but Jarome Iginla is a pretty decent hockey player.

Tonight he almost singlehandedly willed the Flames to a 6-3 win over the St. Louis Blues on the strength of a two-goal, two-assist performance. One goal was lucky, one goal was scary, one assist was beautiful and the other was heads-up. If there’s a more complete player in hockey, I’d like to know about him.

Iginla opened the scoring with what can only be described as a goalscorer’s goal, as a bouncing shot from Cory Sarich deflected off the inside of a falling Iginla’s glove and in just 4:14 into the game. His second goal, which came at 17:38 of the first, was one of those vintage Iginla plays where he finds himself in acres of space for some inexplicable reason and loads up a trillion-mile-an-hour snapshot off one foot. How does any team allow Iginla to find himself with a puck on his stick and no defenseman within 10 feet of him? Note to NHL defenses: Giving Iginla this kind of space is not conducive to winning hockey games.

It should be noted, before continuing, that were it not for the play of Chris Mason during that first period, things could have been a LOT worse for St. Louis than 2-0. He made 13 first-period saves and a great many of them were of very high quality. He certainly prevented Iginla from having a hat trick in the opening 20, that’s for sure. And for a while, Miikka Kiprusoff, who had far less work to do than did Mason in making eight saves in the first, made it seem like this game would end up being a goaltending battle. But once Iginla got that second goal, the Flames were off to the races.

Matt Lombardi scored his third of the year early in the second before the Flames defense decided to take 10 minutes off and let the Blues cut it to 3-2 — and Adrian Aucoin’s giveaway on the Patrick Berglund goal was so good he should’ve gotten an assist — before Iginla hefted the Flames onto his back again, setting up consecutive goals from Mike Cammalleri (and what a beauty this feed was) and Aucoin, via an ahead pass to Lombardi that sprang them for the 2-on-1.

From there, the game was academic and Iginla had career points Nos. 796, 797, 798 and 799. To give you an idea of just how important Iginla is to the Flames, he has scored at least one goal in 12 games this year and the Flames are 11-1-0 in them. That’s a .917 winning percentage! When he doesn’t score, they’re 6-10-3 for a winning percentage of .395. That’s an awful big swing, obviously, and it points to both the Flames’ frustrating inconsistency and Iginla’s inherent value to the team. He may be on pace for “only” 44 goals and 98 points now, but if he shows up, the Flames are nearly unstoppable.

As a Flames fan, I wish he’d shown up to more than just 12 of 31 games this year.

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The Lead

I knew the Flames would lose this game the second the Sportsnet broadcast compared the first two games of the team’s four-game road trip to the infamous six-game trip from last season that saw them win all six and outscore their opponents something like 25-16 (of course they ignored the fact that none of those six teams made the playoffs last year. That was neither here nor there). Calgary had, after all, beaten St. Louis in overtime and shut out the so-so Rangers.

What, then, could possibly go wrong against a team like the Canadiens that are, y’know, good? Oh, right, the Calgary Flames played after winning two in a row and coming off a dominant performance. Any time this year the Flames have played a good opponent after a dominant performance, they have lost because they just don’t show up every night.

Tonight, in a 4-1 loss to Montreal that, coupled with a Canucks win, saw them drop out of first place in the Northwest, the Flames were victimized by not only an outstanding performance by Canadiens backup Jaroslav Halak, but also their own disappointing lack of hockey sense and puck luck.

Halak saw 14 shots in the first period and stopped all of them, which, based upon the quality of those shots, was the only reason it wasn’t 3-1 through 20 minutes. Instead, Robert Lang scored off a goofy bounce on a centering feed that hit Mark Giordano’s leg and got behind Kiprusoff.

The second bad bounce came in the second period when a shot from Calgary’s point hit a shinpad and bounced back to center ice like it had been shot out of a cannon to spring Matt D’Agostini for a breakaway and his fourth goal in as many career NHL games. Dustin Boyd pulled the Flames back within one just over two minutes later but Lang added an insurance goal to double the Montreal lead late in the period.

But when Calgary got a power play early in the third, the game was officially put out of reach by Calgary’s own stupidity. A Habs forward broke his stick while on the PK, but instead of forcing the puck to that side and trying to draw him out to the point and create space in front of the net, Calgary kept it on the strong side and passed back and forth between the point and the man on the halfboards before eventually sending it down low. Not the worst idea in the world but it should’ve been on the other side of the ice. However, when the puck comes down low, the other Canadiens forward trips a Calgary player to draw a 5 on 3.

And this is where the insane part comes in. With 28 seconds left in the original penalty, instead of giving Montreal the puck or putting something low at the net to hope for a scrum, a rebound or Montreal control, Todd Bertuzzi backs out and tries to uncork one from a goofy angle, only to see the puck sail about a mile high and wide and bounce out of the zone and to center ice. At this point, it still doesn’t occur to the Flame that retrieved it to just give the puck to Montreal. Instead, all six Flames CLEAR THE ZONE and regroup for a rush down the center of the ice that somehow doesn’t get a shot on net. By this time, Alex Tanguay, who took the original penalty, has come out of the box and is the first Hab to touch the puck. The game was lost right there. The fact that Andrei Markov scored 39 seconds after Montreal killed the second penalty was just hilarious salt-rubbing.

This was just another game Calgary simply wasn’t prepared for and, no matter how well they played on Sunday or Friday, you have to come to play against good opponents. I would’ve thought Calgary got that note by now, but they pull this all the time. Oh and Detroit’s tomorrow night? Yeah, that should go well.

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The Lead

Somewhere in the immediate vicinity of New York City, Gary Bettman just woke up fully aroused.

For those that thought last night’s Columbus/Edmonton game was a delight to watch, kill a puppy if you have to in order to obtain a tape of tonight’s Calgary Flames/Nashville Predators game. In the New NHLiest game I maybe have ever seen in my life, Calgary won 7-6 in a game that featured a few breakaway goals, four power play goals, THREE shorties, a penalty shot, and nine goals in the last two periods alone.

At one point in the second period, Calgary led the game 5-0 and seemed to be ready to take this one in a laugher. The Flames had scored four goals on just 10 shots on Pekka Renne, well, Dan Ellis hasn’t really inspired much confidence of late either. But because the Flames got fat and happy on their five-goal lead, Nashville began to claw its way back in.

The Preds scored three times in the space of 5:25 to cut the Calgary lead to two, but a goal 60 seconds later from Daymond Langkow, who had another goal disallowed earlier in the period, put the Flames up three again. The teams went into the second intermission with Calgary up 6-3.

The third period was perhaps both teams’ worst 20 minutes of hockey all season. Jarome Iginla scored his second of the game on the power play just 38 seconds in to make it 7-3 and the game appeared to be out of reach, especially considering the Flames had allowed just seven third-period goals all year coming in (tied for second-best in the league). But the Flames tried to sit on it and fiddle around with the puck too much, and Nashville came roaring back. David Legwand scored at 5:26 but Calgary seemed to go into lockdown mode again until the final few minutes, when they got lazy, stupid and careless.

The Flames allowed a shorthanded breakaway to Vernon goddamn Fiddler of all people and Adrian Aucoin felt it necessary to hook him for a clear penalty shot opportunity despite the fact that Fiddler had two strides on him at least and any hook would have been superficially helpful in stopping him at best. Fiddler, of course, buried his penalty shot, because why wouldn’t he? Shea Weber’s second goal of the game, which was also shorthanded, came with just 20 seconds left, and even after Nashville called a timeout, the Flames gave up another decent scoring opportunity.

Mike Keenan left the bench shaking his head, and it’s not hard to tell why. His team, which had already lost two in a row prior to tonight, couldn’t even nurse on a FIVE-GOAL LEAD through the remaining 40-odd minutes of a game that should have ended 9-2. Calgary missed too many empty nets (Iginla put it into the end boards on a breakaway and the third and fourth lines missed tap-ins) and gave too many second and third opportunities and good chances.

Put it this way, you NEVER want to have the final minute of a game you led 5-0 in the second period be a nailbiter. It just shouldn’t happen on any level. Nashville did a great job coming back to make it interesting, but Calgary did a better job letting them do it and nearly erased strong contributions from Iginla (2-2-4), Craig Conroy (2-1-3) and Todd Bertuzzi (0-3-3).

Weber keyed the Nashville comeback with his two goals, but both Martin Erat and David Legwand chipped in with 1-2-3 lines and Jason Arnott and Vernon Fiddler each had a goal and an assist.

In the goaltending gong show, the three goalies combined to allow 13 goals on 58 shots, with Miikka Kiprusoff stopping 23 of 29, Rinne making six saves on 10 shots in his one period of work, and Dan Ellis having the best night of the bunch with 16 saves on 19 shots. Yes, the runaway best goalie in the game had a save percentage of .842.

This game was a total mess from start to finish but hey scoring in the league is up this year so hooray for goals at the expense of legitimate hockey!

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The Lead

(Oh yeah, like I wasn’t writing about this one.)

That much-heralded Dion Phaneuf/Milan Lucic tilt didn’t happen (boooooo, Ference and Iginla), but that was not enough to prevent the Flames and Bruins from playing a pretty decent hockey game tonight in Calgary.

Phaneuf scored and added a helper and Lucic picked up one assist, but the Flames emerged 3-2 victors and spoiled Boston’s perfect road trip. For the Flames, it was their fifth win in a row.

For the Bruins, it was the first time they allowed more than zero goals (really) on their three-game swing through Western Canada. And really, all it took was one bad period to doom the Black and Gold. Boston gave up four power plays in the second and Calgary capitalized on two of them to first level at one and then take a lead. Phaneuf’s goal came first when he followed a Jarome Iginla shot and tipped it over a diving Tim Thomas. The second came when Mike Cammalleri tipped a patented Dion Phaneuf rocket from the point. That was all Calgary needed, essentially. Dustin Boyd’s early third-period goal was very nice and proved the eventual game-winner, but once Calgary went up, the Saddledome was alive and the Bruins didn’t stand a chance.

That is not, however, necessarily their fault. Tim Thomas had an extraordinarily busy four-day trip, stopping 58 shots in Edmonton and Vancouver on back-to-back nights and getting the shutout both times, and then facing a 38-shot onslaught tonight. Something had to give, and the goals that Calgary scored were on a rebound, a redirection and another rebound. Two were on the power play. None were exactly his fault. Plus you have to question the fairness of the NHL supercomputers that schedule the B’s for a game in Edmonton Monday, Vancouver Tuesday then head back to Calgary Thursday. Why not two Alberta games back-to-back? So much for the NHL going green, eh?

The Bruins have to leave Calgary happy with the results of the road trip overall, but disappointed in the offense. Only four goals in nine-plus periods is not the best output in the world, even if you allow only three over that same stretch. But Boston will also return to the east coast with its No. 1 starter firmly established. Thomas made the point clearly and emphatically that Manny Fernandez, for all the cash the Bruins are dumping into his lost-cause contract, deserves to be on doorman duty until such time as Thomas asks for a night off. You only give up three goals on 96 shots during a road trip and keep the Bruins in a game in Calgary where they were outshot 20-8 in the second period, you earned that No. 1 spot. Let Fernandez get his requisite 15 starts the rest of the way and nothing more, because this is and, despite the Bruins’ silly insistence to the contrary, always was Tim Thomas’ job.

Across the rink from Thomas, Miikka Kiprusoff continued his hot streak, surrendering two goals on 31 shots and generally looking impressive. The only goal of the first period came when Kiprusoff made a mess of a handled puck behind the net and Patrice Bergeron picked his pocket for an ugly wraparound. Blake Wheeler’s goal midway through the third was an awful pretty shot following a cross-ice pass and and was also awful unstoppable.

(Note to Peter Chiarelli: Psst, I heard the Blues, Kings, Thrashers and Islanders might need goaltending help. Just sayin’.)

P.S. For those keeping score at home, this is Calgary’s second win in which Jarome Iginla goes without a goal.

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The Lead

(Please note before I begin this post that I had no intention whatever of writing about the Flames again tonight, but their performance against Nashville dictated it. If you were looking for me to talk about Buffalo, I apologize thoroughly. Onward then…)

If Mike Keenan still has a job tomorrow morning, it won’t be because he deserves it.

The Flames have played seven games now, I don’t think there’s been one yet where they looked like anything you could call a contender for the Northwest division crown. That’s all on Keenan.

The Flames may have gotten four third-period goals, including two from Jarome Iginla to complete a hat trick he started in the second period, but it’s important to differentiate Keenan’s lack of coaching from Iginla’s team leadership and ability to take over a game. You or I could have looked like a genius for that just by standing around behind the bench and enjoying a nice piece of Dubble Bubble.

But through seven games, the Flames have continually played undisciplined, largely ineffective, defensively irresponsible hockey. Two straight wins is great to look at, but those games have been impossibly hard to watch. I sat through the entirety of both of them despite strongly considering flipping to another game (I’m a masochist, I guess). I was eventually rewarded for my efforts, such as they are, but these games have been just brutal. The Flames picked up another 23 more minutes in penalties tonight, including giving the Preds a pair of 5-on-3 opportunities, one of which was a full two minutes because Jim Vandermeer decided to high-stick the nearest opponent after Rene Bourque had already been whistled for slashing. This while the team trailed 3-1. It was unbelievable.

The problem is there’s no accountability on this team from the coaching staff. Stupid play isn’t punished with a benching, and any line shuffling has just been abysmal. At one point tonight, Iginla was on a line with Vandermeer and Wayne Primeau with Cory Sarich and Dion Phaneuf at the points. This was actually a strategy that an NHL coach employed in a two-goal game.

The Flames were also hopelessly outplayed in the early going, getting outshot 14-4 in the first period and 24-15 through two. If not for a hilarious Nashville meltdown sparked by Iginla’s goal late in the second period and the Preds’ trying to sit on the lead, this would have been an utter embarrassment for Calgary on the first game of its brief road trip during which they fly from Calgary to Nashville to Phoenix back to Calgary in three and a half days.

Miikka Kiprusoff continued to play pretty well (two starts in a row! what a streak!) in making 35 saves on 38 shots, but he shouldn’t have been that busy. Nashville’s shots per game is 28.3, and that’s 20th in the league. Spot a better team 10 shots above their season average every night and see how many goals you give up. A hint: more than three. None of the goals were really Kipper’s fault. That, obviously, is on the defense, which ultimately is on Keenan.

The Flames will talk about how important the comeback was and how big it is to get two points on the road after trailing 3-0 for more than half the game, but it never should have gotten there. Keenan has coached a perfectly good team into Turdsville, Alberta (no, not Edmonton) and something needs to get squared away coaching-wise soon, because wins like this won’t keep happening.

By the way, the Flames are now 3-0 when Jarome Iginla scores. When he doesn’t, they’re winless. Think about that.

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The Lead

I just watched maybe the worst hockey game I’ve seen in five years.

That Capitals/Flames game in Calgary was the very definition of a sloppily played hockey game. The Flames escaped with a 2-1 win because they simply played less badly than the Caps.

This was a game that saw 43 minutes of penalties handed out — 33 of which resulted in power plays — and one power play goal. Washington squandered a full nine-minute power play in the first power play (you read that right. N-I-N-E.), and Calgary got one power play goal out of 10 opportunities, including four separate 5-on-3s. It was an unmitigated disaster on both sides of the ice.

That nine-minute power play was an especially ugly thing to watch. Rene Bourque went to the box after he jumped Tyler Sloan, who at 27 was making his NHL debut, for a huge, clean hit in the neutral zone on Daymond Langkow, and got a fighting major, an instigating minor, and unsportsmanlike minor, and a misconduct with Washington only attempting seven shots in that time (though it was broken up by a minor penalty to Michael Nylander) and getting a paltry three on net. The Flames’ penalty killers matched that total. It was one of the most pathetic pieces of special teams play I’ve seen in a long, long time. Still the Caps led 1-0 after a period thanks to Sergei Fedorov’s redirection. That goal, by the way, tied him for the most all-time goals by a Russian-born player at 473 with Alex Mogilny.

The Flames, though, weren’t much better. Despite goals 1:42 apart in the second period, one a hard shot from Jarome Iginla on the power play that shouldn’t have trickled past Jose Theodore and the other a rocket from Matt Lombardi that would’ve beaten any goalie alive, the Flames’ man-up play was appallingly poor. I mean, 1 for 10 ain’t how you want your power play to run, especially if you get four cracks at going up two men. Even AFTER this game, the Caps’ penalty kill is still just 24th in the league (75.7 percent), and they got a ton of help padding that stat tonight.

But hey, the Flames’ defense was pretty solid for once, and though Alex Ovechkin tallied just a secondary assist, he was much better than I’ve seen him this season. Very menacing play despite the continuing lack of stats. Miikka Kiprusoff was just as good behind them, making 30 saves including a few rather nice ones. At the other end, Theodore for sure wants the Iginla goal back (he got a pad on it but it somehow got behind him) but he made a few quality saves as well. On a night where the teams split 57 shots, no forwards looked all that great.

I think some changes need to be made, and quickly, in Calgary. The Flames were lucky to pull this one out of their asses, and they probably wouldn’t have done so had they not been afforded NINE STRAIGHT power plays. The defense and goaltending was fine (for once) but this Calgary offense remains punchless — that 2.67 goals a night is good for 20th in the league. I’m not exactly for drumming Mike Keenan out of town just yet (not that I’m specifically against it — it was his 59th birthday today, so go easy on him for now, eh?), but he’s on deathwatch. Obviously his relationship with Kipper is a wee bit testy, but I don’t know how much of Bertuzzi’s resurgence is his doing.. whether Bert’s thriving on Keenan being a dick. The Flames need Jarome Iginla (or hell, ANYBODY) to be a lion most nights, and it’s no coincidence that they’re 2-0 when he pops one in.

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How can you not love this man?

Remember a little while ago when the Flames first signed Todd Bertuzzi, and everyone in the organization went into full damage control mode because the entire city of Calgary was ready to become Oiler fans?

At the time, Flames fans were overwhelmingly against the move, with 54 percent on the Flames’ diehard message board saying it was bad but tolerable, and another seven percent saying they would be boycotting the team until Bertuzzi was out of town. Not even Bertuzzi bringing his adorable son to the meet-the-media presser and refusing to talk about his past, err, indiscretions seem to have dampened Cowtown’s intense dislike for the former Canuck.

It was thought, though, that the furor might die down a bit as time went on.

According to the Calgary Sun, it hasn’t, at all.

The Flames sparked a firestorm of publicity when they signed forward Todd Bertuzzi this summer, but the buzz hasn’t ignited sales of No. 7 jerseys.

At the Sunridge Mall Jersey City, a replica is draped over a mannequin, but not many shoppers are taking notice and sales have been slow so far, said Kris Singleton, a staffer at the store.

“I think we’ve sold one so far,” he said, noting the Bertuzzi jerseys have only been in stock for about week.

That’s enthusiasm.

I’m sure, as the article states, that a few reasons go into the fact that they’ve sold just one (that to an immediate Bertuzzi family member, one assumes). He’s on a one-year contract, first of all. He’s also kind of got to prove himself to Calgary fans as a changed man, in a way.

What this actually is: a non-story. It’s the crummier of the Calgary papers, the one with the blowhard writers (Eric Francis, this means you) and an awful reputation for rumor mongering trying to dredge up a “grrr Bertuzzi” story that will surely have the thicker-skulled Calgary fans angrily shaking their fists and breathing heavily.

What this story isn’t: meaningful. The Sun, for some reason, is trying to run Bertuzzi out of town on a rail, presumably because he won’t talk about the whole Steve Moore thing.

Still, only one jersey? That’s rough.

No, hold the antenna right there. Either Iginla just scored or Phaneuf's leg fell off.

For the last billion years or so, it’s been pretty bad being a fan of a small-market team. This is particularly true in Canada.

For the three western Canadian teams, some games are chosen to be broadcast on pay per view for something like $12 a pop, and some games are not broadcast at all. There have been several Calgary Flames games that I’ve missed over the past few years when they’re not on Center Ice because no one’s broadcasting them. Fans of the Oilers and Canucks have had similar problems.

This year, though, it’s just Calgary that comes out looking pathetic. The Canucks and Oilers are both broadcasting all of their games — yes, some still on pay per view — while Calgary might not. Between the CBC, TSN and Sportsnet, all but 12 games will be covered on free TV (which is a pathetic thing to say just months away from 2009). If you’re an out of market fan and ponied up the well-worth-it $159 bucks, it’s not so bad because you might miss one game here or there over the course of the season against your favorite team, usually mid-week and against a bad opponent. But if you live in Calgary, you’re boned. It’s roughly $150 bucks to watch 12 games against bad teams, and the production values are typically atrocious.

Worse than that for Flames fans? Unlike the Canucks and some Oilers PPV games, Calgary games aren’t broadcast in HD. Over on Calgarypuck, the same frustrations come up year after year, and Flames fans really seem to be tiring of the same old song and dance now. The Flames are right to point out that broadcasting in HD costs about double, but it’s still pretty tough to swallow for any fan who’s shelling out money to watch an F’ing hockey game on TV in their homes.

Says “Incinerator” (perhaps not his real name):

Holding your customers hostage (either buy the crappy version or do without at all) is not how you win fans over.

Calgary doesn’t necessarily need to win fans over, though. The Flames sold more seats on a percentage basis than any other team in the league by a pretty decent margin, and people love the team so much that they’ll do anything to watch them.

The Flames know it’s an issue as much as the fans do, but given the market size, there’s no way to really fix this any time soon. It’s kind of sad that any NHL team has to suffer this type of indignity. No way this is a problem in the NBA or Major League Baseball.

Mickey Renaud was just 19

The cause of death for Windsor Spitfires captain and Calgary Flames draft pick Mickey Renaud, who collapsed at his family’s home back in February, has been determined: it was hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Toxicology tests also confirmed no presence of any type of drugs.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a genetic disorder in which the heart muscle can be abnormally thick.

Mark Renaud thanked the public for the “prayers and well wishes throughout our most difficult time.”

Renaud, a talented hockey star, collapsed in his family’s home in the Windsor suburb of Tecumseh on Feb. 18. He was rushed to Windsor Regional Hospital but could not be resuscitated.

If not for some irregularities spotted by doctors at the NHL Draft Combine this year, Lightning draftee David Carle might have suffered the same fate. He, too, was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and as a result will never play hockey again. It is difficult to believe that kids are not subject to the same tests in the CHL combines, given the myriad potential health risks involved.

But this serves as a sobering reminder that life’s bigger than hockey, and hopefully it will lead to earlier detection in other players, like Carle, before something like this happens again.

Hulk Hogan attempts to body slam Andre the Giant

It may not be official yet, but the Calgary Flames’ website is listing Andre Roy as a member of the team.

Darryl Sutter obviously didn’t think bringing in Todd Bertuzzi would be enough of a daily distraction (still a great signing, by the way), so he brought in one of the league’s more unstable, insane, and frankly bad players this side of Chris Simon. In a city that loves its hockey that much, and has a fanbase with elements that are ready to give up on the team because it signed Bertuzzi, a signing like this goes a long way toward alienating those fans — clods though they may be — further.

Andre Roy? Really? THIS sideshow act?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt_PtFx5P2s]

When John Tortorella thinks you’re out of line, you’re bordering on Heath Ledger-as-the-Joker levels of insanity.

The one thing Roy brings to the team though, outside of a constant fear that he’s going to try to break a teammate’s neck, is an edge the Flames seriously lacked. Jarome Iginla had said the team lacked a true heavyweight with the loss of Eric Godard, but that it had a number of middleweights that could handle themselves well in a fight, and that’s true enough. But the idea that the Flames were going to enter the season with Brandon Prust as an enforcer was a strange hybrid between laughable and sad.

Roy at least brings a nastiness missing from the team since Krzysztof Oliwa and Chris Simon played in Calgary during the 2003-04 Cup run.

This video is everything that’s good and bad about having Andre Roy on your team. He can intimidate heavyweights, but he’s a crazy person:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsZbfOcpYMQ]

For what it’s worth, and assuaging the fears of Flames fans somewhat, is the fact that this is to be found nowhere else besides the NHL’s website, and they’ve been known to make this kind of blunder before.