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Sleeping
Giant Wakes Up
Flames
Fall to Another Western
Dynamo
November
3rd, 2003
D'Arcy McGrath
You
wouldn't know it on this
night, but the Flames
continued a positive
trend on Tuesday in
dropping a 3-0 decision
to the Detroit Red
Wings.
The
club has beaten all the
clubs they need to beat
in order to fight it out
for a playoff spot this
spring, but have fallen
each and every time they
have faced one of the
Western powers.
|
| Reinprecht |
Conroy |
Iginla |
| Gelinas |
Lombardi |
Kobasew |
| Saprykin |
Yelle |
Donovan |
| Oliwa |
Betts |
Clark |
| Ference |
Lydman |
| Leopold |
Regehr |
| Gauthier |
Montador |
|
The
club dropped a decisive
battle to the Vancouver
Canucks to open their
season, before coming up
short in close matches
to the Blues, Avalanche
and Stars before their
encounter with Detroit
tonight.
The
first period was less
than exciting for the
Saddledome fans, but a
successful for the
Flames as they held the
high octane Red Wings in
a strangle hold and
wrestled their way to a
scoreless tie.
The
momentum shifted late in
the period when the
referee tandem handed
out the games first
penalty when Chuck
Kobasew was sent off for
interfering with Wing
legend Steve Yzerman.
The
Flames escaped the
period, but gave up a
quick powerplay goal to
Brendan Shanahan to star
the second - the Wings
never looked back.
A
few minutes later the
Wings doubled their lead
when Darren McCarty took
advantage of a sloppy
Jarome Iginla play and
walked in alone to beat
Jamie McLennan.
Down
two to a veteran,
playoff battled club
like the Wings is
essentially climbing
Mount Everest, and the
Flames predictably
didn't even come close
the summit.
Darryl
Sutter tried to jolt
them into action by
pulling starter Jamie
McLennan after two
periods - despite the
fact that the margin of deficit
clearly wasn't the
stopper's fault - and
replacing him with
rookie Dany Sabourin.
It
was the Wings however,
that scored the only
goal of the third stanza
in rounding out the
scoring when Shanahan
scored his second of the
night.
The
game itself was devoid
of any impact plays from
any of the Flames impact
players. Jarome Iginla
was virtually invisible
and the rest of the
clubs' top line was held
not only scoreless but
essentially chance less
on the night.
The
Flames round out their
three game homestand on
Friday night when the
resurgent and fully
staffed Minnesota Wild
come a calling.
The
Wild are a team that the
Flames must beat in
order to stay ahead or
with the pack, though as
we mentioned earlier,
they seem to have these
games covered.
For
now anyway.
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