NHL History: Calgary Flames fall in game four of 2004 finals

One of the tightest games of the 2004 Stanley Cup finals happened 16 years ago today.

The Calgary Flames and Tampa Bay Lightning were in the midst of their cup finals as Calgary held a 2-1 series lead.

Calgary snagged wins in games one and three (4-1, 3-0), but couldn’t put it together in game four. Tampa Bay had got out to an early lead with Brad Richards scoring 2:48 into the game on a 5-on-3 powerplay, and never looked back.

The Flames did, however, push back as they fired 29 shots on Nikolai Khabibulin but couldn’t beat him.

For Richards, it gave him an NHL record with his 7th game-winning goal of the ’04 playoffs.

Calgary went on to game five 3-2 in OT, and Tampa won game six 3-2 in 2OT — but not without some controversy. The infamous “was it in” incident happened when it appeared Martin Gelinas scored. The puck deflected off his skate and was stopped by Lightning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, but it did look like it had actually crossed the goal line. The goal was never reviewed, and Calgary went on to lose.

The Flames’ fate was sealed with a 2-1 loss in game seven.

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