Hey alright!

The Flames are now 2-0-0 against Detroit when I give them zero chance to win. Congratulations to me.

This week’s Detroit game was much more convincing than the one 10 days ago, I figure. Calgary opened a nice lead instead of playing from behind. Calgary took roughly 8 trillion times fewer penalties. Calgary commanded much of the game. All against arguably the best team in the league.

It’s all very encouraging, and this was without a major offensive contribution from Jarome Iginla and Olli Jokinen. Fine by me.

The only thing that’s troubling is how the Flames pummel the Stars one game, get embarrassed by the Blues the next, then bully the Red Wings after that. I don’t get it. It’s this lack of desperation in every game that has the Flames at “only” 90 points. If they didn’t throw away points to crap teams with such alarming frequency (just in the last 14 days or so: Carolina, Atlanta, Toronto, St. Louis), you’d be hearing a LOT more talk about how much damage the Flames are going to do in the postseason.

I think, based on how they’ve gotten up for the “big games” since the win in San Jose, they’ll elevate the level of play come the postseason and lay a good old fashioned walloping on whichever team is unfortunate enough to draw them in the first round.

Games like this are great to see, even if games like the last one are quite terrible.

Mike Cammalleri — He was outstanding, obviously, from a production standpoint (another 1-2-3 night.. his sixth three-point night and 22nd multi-point of the season!), but I thought his was the hand that guided Calgary safely to this win. Just a very steady, calming influence. It sucks that he’s gone after this season.

The Craig Conroy line — Monstrous. Six points combined for Connie, David Moss and Curtis Glencross. A goal and an assist each. Well-deserved, too. They did everything right in all three zones.

Beating Detroit —Dropping gimmes against the Blues is bad, but winning the big ones against the teams you maybe shouldn’t beat more than makes up for it. After these last two games, do you think Detroit wants to run into the Flames in the postseason?

Dion Phanuef — He had a very solid game. It’s nice to see he can still bring it against good teams if he has to, even if he got abused on that Hudler goal. Carried the water well enough, I thought.

Chris Osgood — Hahahaha god he’s awful.

Jamie Lundmark — The way he’s been playing lately, he’s going to want a big raise in the offseason. And he will have earned it too.

Discipline — Calgary took ONE minor penalty against Detroit all night, and that was in the first period. That’s a hell of a way to keep the team with the best power play in the league by far off the scoreboard. Complete 180 from the game at the Joe. Great to see.

That third period — Almost had a total meltdown, but then again that’s what a team like Detroit can do to you if you’re not careful. It’s not the most egregious misdeed in the world, but it is a bit troublesome.

Being Ty Conklin —Osgood gives up three goals on 13 shots and gets the hook after about 25 minutes. Conklin gives up one on 12. He gets the loss.

Miikka Kiprusoff — Not outright bad, mind you, but the goals he gave up were, umm, less than desirable.

Nothin’.