Postgame: That Thing You Do

The sun sets at night and rises again in the morning.  Lindsay Lohan abuses substances.  And the Calgary Flames beat the Edmonton Oilers.  From what I’ve seen in my lifetime, those trends don’t seem to be changing, and on Saturday night, the Flames continued that trend with another all-too-easy victory in Edmonton, this time by a 6-2 score.  It finishes off a successful three game road trip for the Flames, where they earned five of a possible six points.

A dominant first period was all the Flames needed, as they scored three times in the opening frame to put this one away early.  The first came on the tail end of a Calgary powerplay, with Mikael Backlund taking a pretty pass from Mark Giordano at 6:48 to convert his fourth of the season.  At 10:14, Blake Comeau’s slap shot from the left circle eluded Nikolai Khabibulin for his third of the season and his first in 13 games to give Calgary a 2-0 lead; they’d go ahead by three on Lee Stempniak’s first of the night and tenth of the season on a pretty shot at 18:52.  Scoring chances were 6-1 Flames after one, and their first period made the final 40 minutes a formality.

With just 36 seconds to go in the second period, Calgary would go up by four on another Stempniak goal, this one being allowed far too easily.  That’s really all you need to know about that period.

Andy Sutton and Ryan Smyth both scored in the third period, and the game might have been a little closer had those Edmonton markers not been covered off by Jarome Iginla’s team-leading 19th of the season and Stempniak’s hat-trick marker, to finish off a 6-2 win.

…why the Flames won?  Uh, because they played a decent game against a really bad opponent.  I’m not going to jump over the moon for a win over the Edmonton Oilers, but I’ll still give credit where it’s due.  Calgary’s effort wasn’t all that different from their last two games on the road, but those opponents were good teams, so things were a little closer and the Flames were able to eek out wins.  They didn’t need to eek out anything on this night.

Hey, he’s the first player this season to get a hatty, so the nod has to go to Lee Stempniak.  He had just one goal in his previous 20 games heading into action tonight, so seeing Stempniak come away with three has to be encouraging.  His line go another goal, with Comeau’s first period goal also coming from their trio with Olli Jokinen.

Breaking things down into little segments is fun to do, and for the Flames, having successful little runs like this three game trip allows them to continue sticking with it.  They got points in all three games on the road, and while I don’t see that overall style being the most sustainable, it is keeping them in this thing.  Now just one more game before the All Star break, as Calgary welcomes San Jose on Tuesday.