Chris Simon put in his own rebound after a period and a half of frantic, physical but scoreless play and Calgary's fighting Flames took the series lead by beating Tampa Bay 3-0 in Game 3 Saturday night.
Simon and Shean Donovan scored just over three minutes apart in an uptempo second period after Calgary, playing the first Cup final game on Canadian ice in 10 years, was held to two shots in the first period.
Flames captain Jarome Iginla set up Simon's power-play goal, scored with 1:32 remaining to seal Calgary's first final win since the Flames last won the Cup in 1989 and even fought with Lightning star Vincent Lecavalier in early in the game.
PHOTO: EPA
"I think that fight was huge and really set the tone physically for us," Simon said. "They've got a lot of skill and we know we had to establish a physical presence."
The upstart Flames, out of the playoffs for seven straight seasons until being revived by coach Darryl Sutter, could take a 3-1 lead by winning Game 4 Monday -- but only if Tampa Bay halts its monthlong trend of following a loss with a win.
The Lightning have alternated wins and losses for nine straight games, three short of New Jersey's 12-game streak in 1988 -- a fitting run, too, because Tampa Bay has usually followed a strong game with a weak one. The Lightning had evened the series by winning 4-1 in Game 2 following an uninspired 4-1 loss.
"This was a very big game," Iginla said. "Now we need another one."
In all three games so far, the winning team has scored first and, with both teams sensing how important that first goal would be again, the game started at a frenetic pace and stayed that way. For good reason, too; Calgary is 12-1 and Tampa Bay is 11-2 when scoring first.
Tampa Bay wasted an excellent chance to take the early lead, getting more power-play chances (3) than Calgary did shots (2) in the first period. The Lightning power play, which was converting at an unusually high 20 percent rate, finished 0-for-4.
Making the night even worse for Tampa Bay, forward Ruslan Fedotenko was helped off the ice after cutting his right cheekbone while being slammed into the boards by Robyn Regehr with about six minutes remaining. Fedotenko, who has 10 playoff goals, looked dazed when he left the ice.
With the Lightning's Brad Lukowich off for slashing, the Flames finally scored when Iginla skated down the right wing boards, hopped over defenseman Darryl Sydor and fed Simon for a wrist shot from the right circle that missed. Simon gathered his own rebound and stuffed it past Nikolai Khabibulin inside the near post at 13:53 of the second, then slammed into the boards to celebrate.
"What a play he [Simon] made to get us going," Iginla said.
Calgary was only 11-for-95 on the power play coming into the game, a conversion rate only about half that of Tampa Bay, and the goal ignited the Flames' Sea of Red -- the jersey-wearing crowd of 19,221 that calls itself the loudest in the league. It got even louder a few minutes later.
Lecavalier controlled the puck behind the Flames net and tried to throw it in front to Fredrik Modin, but the pass went wide. Donovan gathered it just inside the blue line, raced down ice and beat Khabibulin with a perfect shot inside the far post without the goalie reacting at 17:09.
Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff made the lead stand up, making 21 saves. It was his fifth shutout, matching Dominik Hasek (2002) and Martin Brodeur (2003) by getting at least one shutout in each playoff round.
"We wanted to play a more disciplined, patient game and I think we did that," Sutter said.
Before Simon and Donovan each scored their fifth goals, the play was almost a contraction -- no scoring, very few shots, but almost continuous end-to-end action highlighted by the Iginla-Lecavalier fight with about six minutes in.
"We didn't get a lot of shots in the first period, but we were very physical. That carried into the second," Iginla said. "... The fight is just part of the intensity out there; everybody knows what's on the line. The fight just kind of happened."
The up-and-down flow was a total reversal of last year's Mighty Ducks-Devils final, when both teams played mostly with extreme caution.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS