Avs douse Flames' hopes with 4-1 win
The Colorado Avalanche's Stanley Cup Playoffs aspirations are still on life support. But the Avs may have flatlined the hopes of the Calgary Flames.Semyon Varlamov stopped 38 shots Friday night as Colorado defeated
Calgary 4-1 at Scotiabank Saddledome, keeping their hopes of playoff
participation alive while all but dousing the Flames.
With the win, the 10th-place Avalanche have a
sliver of hope -- they have 88 points but play just two more times, and not at
all until next Thursday.
"We're so excited after this game because we win and
get two points and still have a chance to play in the playoffs," Varlamov said. "We'll
see what happens in the next five, six days. The five teams play each other so
we just need to wait“
"It might be a little bit scary for us but we can't
control those things for us. We just need to wait."
The Flames, who have lost seven of eight games
down the stretch to fall to 11th place, remain at 85 points with the
opportunity to earn six more before season's end. Calgary isn't eliminated just
yet, but will require an extraordinary set of circumstances to have any hope at
an extended season.
"You prepare all season long to give yourself a
chance in the playoffs and to maybe not get there, it just feels like it was
almost all for nothing and you just showed up and went about your business and
went home," defenseman Chris Butler said. "It's not any fun watching other teams compete and get a chance to
reach that ultimate goal of winning a Cup."
Calgary's
undoing came minutes after the drop of the puck.
Lugging
the puck up the ice, Mark Olver lost
control of the puck shortly after gaining the Flames zone, but Calgary
blueliner Jay Bouwmeester proceeded
to corral the puck and inadvertently fire it past Miikka Kiprusoff and into his own net to give the Avalanche the
lead just 3:21 after the opening faceoff.
"I went to put the puck in the corner and it didn't
obviously," Bouwmeester said. "It's not a very good time for that
to happen."
David Jones extended the lead midway through the period thanks to an
incredible effort by defenseman Erik
Johnson. Picking the puck up off the stick of a tripped Gabriel Landeskog at the blue line,
Johnson circled the entire Flames zone with a delayed penalty coming before
uncorking a wrister from the blue line that Jones was able to deflect behind
Kiprusoff to make it 2-0.
With
their playoff lives on the line, the Flames came out firing in the second
period.
First,
it was the duo of Lee Stempniak and Matt Stajan forcing Varlamov to make
back-to-back pad saves. Anton Babchuk's
bomb on the power play was met with the same result.
But
despite being outshot 9-1 in the first eight minutes of the period, it was
Colorado who built on its lead with Milan Hejduk's one-timer from the point
eluding Kiprusoff at 8:29 to give the visitors a 3-0 advantage.
With
a three-goal edge, Varlamov slammed the door.
He
made a pad save off David Moss after
Tom Kostopoulos was able to force a
turnover on a waved-off icing with 5:30 left in the period. Varlamov followed
it up with a similar save off of Kostopoulos, who was left untouched in front
of the net with 1:06 remaining.
Varlamov's
pads continued to dazzle in the third. Just 2:10 into the period, he kicked out
a shot from Mark Giordano, who had
slid down from his point position into the slot. He was equally as good getting
a toe on Blair Jones' cross-ice
one-timer at 9:03.
Jarome Iginla spoiled Varlamov's shutout bid with just 38 seconds
remaining, converting a pass from Curtis
Glencross with the net empty and on the power play. Peter Mueller added an empty-netter for the Avs with 33 seconds
remaining.
"We just wanted to win first and foremost but
obviously you always want to get the shutout," said Johnson, who finished the game with two assists. „When you give Iginla that much time and
space he's going to make you pay. I think Varly will take the two points over
anything."
The
goal, Iginla's 32nd of the season and first in eight games, ended a dry spell
of 139:50 for the Flames but was of little consolation.
"This is really tough," the Flames captain said. "Nobody was giving up. We were going to try to win our games and
look for some breaks but we didn't do that. This obviously doesn't give us much
of a chance at all. It's tough on us."
-by
Aaron Vickers for NHL.com-
Eurolanche.com, Worldwide, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
31/03/2012 - 09:00
