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Flames
Large In Vancouver
Roman
Turek and Powerplay Lead
the Way
December
9th, 2002
D'Arcy McGrath
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AP Photo |
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Have a Seat!:
Denis Gauthier takes a rest after planting Trent Klatt into
the Canuck's bench.
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Go
figuere.
You'd
have to look back to
November 2nd, a 4-4 tie
with the Avalanche to
see a game in which the
Flames struck twice on
the powerplay.
So
what pray tell was the
magic elixir that put
the special back in
special teams for the
Calgary Flames?
Who'd
a thunk the main problem
with the club's man
advantage situations was
simply just too much
darn talent on the ice?
You
got it ... sit down the
ailing superstar
forward, Jarome Iginla,
and presto, your
powerplay becomes a
reincarnation of the
1979 Canadiens, the 1986
Edmonton Oilers, the
1992 Pittsburgh
Penguins.
Er
... well at least they
got the job done.
Other
than the powerplay and
an astounding effort by
Roman Turek, the Flames
were very fortunate to
steal two points in
Vancouver with a 2-1
victory on Monday night. They
say that bounces even
out over a season, but
the Calgary squad had
better hope that lady
luck measures bounces by
the game total and not
the occurrence, as the
Flames likely burned up
a season's worth in this
one. The
Flames opened the
scoring in the first
period on an early
powerplay opportunity.
Chris Clark fed the puck
to Oleg Saprykin in the
slot who managed to fire
a quick, hard shot
towards goaltender Petr
Skudra. The rebound
pounced out to Clark who
was also foiled before
Mattias Johansson jumped
on it to score his 4th
of the season. That
lead held until seconds
into the second period
when Artem Chubarov
scored on a wraparound
to settle the score. The
Flames went back up to
stay three and a half
minutes later when Chris
Drury had his powerplay
point shot redirected by
grade school buddy Chris
Clark to make the score
2-1. "I
was just trying to get position,
I saw the lane cleared
up. He had his head down
trying to keep the puck
in the zone. I called
his name, he looked up,
and I managed to get a
stick on it", said
Chris Clark after the
game. From
there the Flames tried
to batten down the
hatches and bottle of
the Canucks, essentially
hanging on to the lead. They
were successful due in
large part to the
stellar goaltending of
Roman Turek, some good
shot blocking by the
defence core and, as I
eluded to earlier, a
fair share of bounces
for the road side. With
Jarome Iginla out of the
line up the game plan
was clearly to play
tight defence against a
Canuck team that was
unstoppable through
November, winning 10 in
a row. Part
of said game plan would
also include getting the
Canucks top stars like
Markus Naslund, Todd
Bertuzzi and Ed
Jovanovski off their
games. Denis
Gauthier did more than
his share in this
department, especially
with Bertuzzi and
Jovanovski who both took
silly penalties to get
at Gauthier. The
Flames return to Calgary
to take on the Carolina
Hurricanes on Thursday
night, riding a three
game unbeaten streak,
all in the wake of Greg
Gilbert's firing. "We
haven't felt this way in
a long time. This what
we want to feel
like", summed up
Clark.
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