Flames stretch undefeated streak to 7 games
14.01.01
Captain nets hat-trick in critical win over Canucks
Calgary extended their season high 7 game undefeated streak as they crashed Vancouver's party, by a score of 7-4. Ensuring the win was Captain Jarome Iginla who snapped an 8 game goalless drought with a critical hat-trick, his second of the season. Previous to tonight's game, Iginla had scored just 2 goals in his past 17 games.
"It's been a rough few weeks for sure." Beamed the young Captain. "We made a change, putting Gelinas on our line and it seemed to work."
Coach Fyvie had made some minor changes going into tonight's game by moving Stillman back with Drury and St.Louis, sending O'Neill back to Shantz's line with Lowry and promoting Martin Gelinas to the top line with Savard and Iginla. The move sparked the offense as Gelinas set up Iginla on two even-strength goals.
The shuffle effected results up and down the lineup as the other 3 lines produced goals as well.
The team has yet to lose since they last played Vancouver, dropping an embarrassing 10-1 decision. The loss prompted Fyvie to pull the trigger on a critical trade, acquiring Chris Drury for Clarke Wilm and prospect Oleg Saprykin. Since the swap, the Flames have been undefeated, going 6-0-1 in that time.
St.Louis opened the scoring at 01:47 of the first period with his 11th of the season from new linemate Cory Stillman and Tommy Albelin. Hnat Domenichelli (pictured) scored his 4th at 05:51 from Housley and Wiemer and Iginla scored his first of 3 at 08:19 to make it a 3 goal lead from Gelinas and Savard.
Vancouver got on the board to close out the period at 18:56 from Todd Bertuzzi making it 3-1 after 20 minutes.
Jarome extended the lead at 06:30 of the second with his second of the night from Gelinas and McDonald. Jeff Shantz potted his 5th of the season at 10:11 from O'Neill and Lowry to make it a 4 goal game.
From here Vancouver went to work in the dying moments of the second with two quick goals on Fred Brathwaite, O'Sullivan at 18:09 and Naslund at 19:15 with his 21st goal of the year.
Naslund would score again midway through the 3rd period at 08:39 making it a one goal game. The score held until the dying moments of the 3rd when Iginla completed his hat-trick on a two-man advantage at 18:54 for his 19th of the season. Stillman capped the game less than a minute later, on the powerplay and into an empty net to finish off the host Canucks.
Shots were 38 to 28 for the Flames. Calgary went 2 for 6 whereas the Canucks went 3 for 5 on the man-advantage.
The win places Calgary in a 3-way tie with Vancouver, and Edmonton for 6th place in the conference. Both the Flames and Canucks have one game in hand over the Oilers.
The Flames look to continue their winning ways when they play the Sharks in San Jose on the 17th of January before returning to Calgary. Vancouver will host the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday the 16th of January before going on a 3 game road trip.