Postgame: Get to the Point

Sometimes when you lose games in overtime, you should probably take the important point and move on, forgetting the 60 plus minutes prior to the result.  On Thursday night in Dallas, you didn’t see a whole lot from the Calgary Flames, but they used a third period Mike Cammalleri goal to push the game to even strength before Mike Ribeiro wired home his 12th of the season for a 3-2 Stars win.

Dallas opened the scoring with some poor defensive coverage by the Flames, as Jake Dowell was able to walk around the net and find Adam Burish all alone to the right side of the slot.  The annoying Stars forward fluttered his sixth of the season past Miikka Kiprusoff at 9:42 for an early lead.  However, late in the period, Calgary pounced on an opportunity with Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay working a nice give-and-go.  Iginla would finish it off on a nice return pass for his team leading 23rd of the season, sending the game to the intermission tied at one. 

The second period saw Dallas get their opportunities, and on a late powerplay, they’d make good on one.  High of the right circle, Steve Ott would take a pass from Ribeiro and wire his ninth of the season off the post and in as the Stars regained their lead at 17:43.  After Calgary did a nice job of turning their limited possession into scoring chances in the first period, it was the Stars running things in the second, coming out on top of the chance count at 9-4.

The third period looked like it might get away from the Flames, as Dallas had a few quality scoring chances early on, as Calgary needed Kiprusoff to come up big to keep them down by just one.  After racking up a ton of scoring chances on a Trevor Daley delay-of-game penalty, Ott would take a rather ill-advised penalty.  Ott was flagged for charging on a hit he laid on Jarome Iginla, giving the Flames another chance on the powerplay.  While they wouldn’t score on the man advantage, they’d hit the scoreboard for a second time ten seconds after it expired, with Jay Bouwmeester throwing a nice pass across the slot to Cammalleri for his 13th of the season at 14:57.

It didn’t take long for the Stars to pick up the extra point in overtime, and it came on a pretty individual play from Ribeiro.  He’d wire his shot from the high slot of his second of the night and 12th of the season, giving Dallas a much needed win and on this night a pretty deserving two points.

…why the Flames lost?  Because things went the way of the better team on this night, even if it did go to overtime.  Dallas was better and had the balance of the offensive zone time from start to finish.  While Calgary did a decent job of limiting damage in the first period, the Stars racked up the opportunities in the final 40 minutes and were unfortunate not to come out with two points in regulation.  That said, these are the games that playoff teams find a way to get a point in, and Calgary did…and that’s the main positive you should be taking.

Jay Bouwmeester.  I really liked the way he played tonight, and I’ve really liked the newfound edge he’s seemingly added to his game of late.  Bo’s pass across the slot late in the third period allowed Cammalleri to tie the game, and his 25:47 of ice time was very efficiently and well played.  I thought he was Calgary’s best player on this night.

All in all, a pretty unimpressive game for the Flames.  That said, they got a point…and knowing a beat up, tired team is going to have games like these down the stretch, getting a point out of them has to be looked at as some kind of positive.  That said, eventually the percentages will go south on you, and Calgary was lucky the percentages didn’t do that in Dallas.  The Flames have got another crucial road game on Saturday night in Los Angeles.