Flames Crown Kings

The Flames were able to extend their longest winning streak of the month, with their second consecutive victory tonight, against the Los Angeles Kings. (what a month!) Coming off a strong 2nd half to their game in Edmonton on Monday, the Flames continued to play a more complete game, despite a couple of early setbacks.

Early in the first period, while chasing down the puck to beat out an icing call, Dion Phaneuf laid a rather large hit on the Kings’ Anze Kopitar. Phaneuf was given a five minute major and a game misconduct. I think the call was little over the top. It wasn’t a boarding penalty, as Kopitar had his back to the boards, and it wasn’t a roughing penalty, as the check was clean. I suppose it could have been called an interference penalty, but that should only merit two minutes in the bin, not an ejection. Either way, Phaneuf was out of the game, and his minutes needed to be picked up. While Bouwmeester played his normal 26-27 minutes, it was Mark Giordano and Adam Pardy who were impressive in taking on the extra work load.

Giordano seemed to be involved in almost every play of the game, issuing several hits, and playing another good game in a season that has become his coming out party. All of this was done while logging an above average 25 minutes of ice time and earning the 2nd star of the game. What really impressed me however was the play of Adam Pardy, who had over 24 minutes on ice, despite not having played 20 minutes or more in a game this year. Besides spending most of the night on the ice, Pardy had a great defensive game, perhaps his best of the year, breaking up two quality Kings’ scoring chances and finishing the contest with a plus 2 rating.

The Phaneuf ejection turned out not be the last blown call of the game, as five minutes into the second period, Giordano was called for a hooking penalty on Dustin Brown, who for some inexplicable reason, was granted a penalty shot. In the replay, it was very clear that Jokinen was between Brown and Kiprusoff and that there wasn’t any type of breakaway taken away from the infraction. It ended up not being an issue however, as Brown made one of the worst penalty shot attempts I’ve ever seen, completely losing control of the puck 20 feet in front of Kiprusoff, causing the puck to be blown dead.

In the third period, I thought the Flames played a little too conservatively in their attempt to shut down the Kings. While they were successful in not allowing any goals, they also didn’t create any changes for themselves, with only three shots on net in the final frame. While I have no problem with a shut-down game, I usually wouldn’t expect to see it in a one goal game. I suppose the proof is in the pudding however, as the game has been recorded as a ‘W’.

-TheRev