Post Game: DAMN!

 

 

List of things you want in a hockey game:

We got it all and more tonight, Citizens. I don’t even know how to begin talking about this one, it was just a crazy night.

But I’m going to try anyway. I’m going to try and breakdown a game where the Flames won 5-4 in a shootout on a night where ERIC NYSTROM scored 4 goals.

Good luck to me.

You are going to see the name Nystrom a lot in this recap. You know, THIS Nystrom:

 

 

He (Eric, not Bob), took advantage of a loose puck near every Flame ever and scored on the #Perds first shot of the game foreshadowing what would end up being a short night for Flames starter Karri Ramo. It was a sign of things to come. Thankfully for the Flames, Nashville took a few penalties on the night (an uncommon phenomenon for the Flames – they didn’t even get ONE power play opportunity against the Sharks – so it was nice to see) and Mark Giordano tied the game on their first opportunity off of some nice passing from Mikael Backlund and Kris Russell.

That Russel kid has pretty good. HAVE THE FLAMES RE-SIGNED HIM YET? (I’m going to mention this endlessly until Brian Burke gets this done. You’ve been warned)

Sign Rusty.

Anyway, shots were 8-6 after 1, which makes sense, because the Flames seem to always get outshot in the first on games I recap.

Nystrom took over in the second, taking advantage on an ugly rebound Ramo let out trying to handle a bouncer from center ice, notching his second goal of the game. Once again, that’s Eric Nystrom. Nyzerman (remember that) would get his gigantic oaf foot in the way of a Paul Gaustad side of the net effort four minutes later to put America’s Favourite Team up by 2 goals, chasing Ramo from the game in favour of Reto Berra, and at that point I had pretty much given up:

 

 

But fret not, BoL from the past! The third period would prove to be a gem!

David Jones (!!) would put the Flames within a goal a minute and a half into the frame, upping his trade value in my poor delusional dream filled head. WE HAD A GAME ON OUR HANDS.

And then Eric Nystrom scored. No kidding. Once again, that’s Eric Nystrom. Scoring 4 goals. 4 goals in a game is the same amount of goals that Day 1 Nashville Predator David Legwand has scored in his entire career (for the purposes of this analogy).

One more goal and he probably would have done another strip tease. Joe Thornton looks on in awed envy of four goal scorer Eric Nystrom.

But that would be it for the Predators, as the Flames dominated the rest of the game, and yes you read that right.

Mikael "God of Things" Backlund would put a puck THROUGH Devan Dubnyk (you remember him, don’t you?) on a power play, keeping it close. REAL close. Would the comeback be complete?

You all watched the game, admit it. You know they did. TJ Brodie, my absolute favourite, would rip a clapper from just past the point, and even though they gave it to David Jones, it was all TJ. TJ’s the best. TJ tied the game.

Eric Nystrom had a partial breakaway towards the end of the stanza and I almost lost my damn mind. Can you imagine if Eric Nystrom scored 5 goals in a game. I just sort of assumed he’d score the winner if the game went into overtime.

Which it did. But he didn’t. No one did.

The Flames outshot Nashville 15-7 in the third and only 1-0 somehow in overtime, and DAMN did they look good (see title of this article)

shootouts came, shootouts went. Sean Monahan tucked a backhander through Dubnyk’s five hole in the 4th round of the shootout before Berra made a bananas Scorpion style one legged save with his gargantuan leg to seal the victory.

WIN COLUMN!

Well hey, goal scoring was a big part of it, and it’s been a while since we’ve been able to say that. The defense was not particularly stunning and Ramo had a tough night, so the fact that the offense didn’t let the team down was nothing short of miraculous. Berra played pretty well in relief as well, and you all know my thoughts on what it truly an awful goaltender, so for me to say that must mean he played pretty well.

And not just offense, but offense from the back end. Mark Giordano was great as always, and TJ Brodie jumped up into the rush maybe ten times tonight, and looked good doing it. Gio and Russell shared a brain tonight.

Seriously, sign Rusty.

The defense were in on 3 of the 4 regulation goals and were just spectacular.

You hate to see guys miss time because of injury, but not having to waste minutes on Brian McGrattan tonight certainly helped. The Flames held their worst players to under 6 minutes tonight, and by that I mean Westgarth and O’Brien, and it’s a good thing, because even from the outset of this game those two looked bad. The 4th line also featured Paul Byron and Blair Jones, and they both played significantly more time than Westgarth. It looked good. This team is learning.

Oh golly, I don’t know, a lot of options today. I’m going to go with Brodie (THE TEEJ), as he was just dynamic tonight.

Gio played over 30 minutes and Rusty was RIGHT there, but in 2 minutes tonight, Brodie was the man. 3 shots on goal, 1 assist on the pivotal tying goal, and just left the game better than he found it today. Simply put, he was the most noticeable guy on the ice on a night where there were a lot of noticeable guys on the ice.

The boys in red have a modest two game winning streak on their plate right now, and hey, embrace the positives. They’ve played some really good hockey since that awful stretch where they weren’t scoring any goals. Let’s not remember that tire fire here tonight, especially when we consider how fun this game was. 

And this game really was that fun. I was captivated throughout most of it, what with the back and forthness and the late game heroics and Eric Nystrom scoring 4 goals in a game his team lost. This is why we love hockey. Anything can happen.

Calgary’s got the weekend off, and hey, they earned it. They’ll go for their first 3 game winning streak of the year as the Blackhawks roll into town (gulp). Quite the test, but I’ll remind you they’re 1-1 against Chicago this year, so stranger things have happened.

Enjoy your weekend, Flames fans! Go do something productive. Like drink or something, I don’t know.