I think we can all agree that the Calgary Flames put in a 60 minute effort on Monday night in Nashville, dispatching one of the hottest teams in the NHL in very impressive fashion…a 5-0 win and a club record 10 game point streak on the road.

With the win, the Flames also set a team record with 22 points in the month of November, and this was a pretty good way to finish off the eleventh month of the year.  Right from the get-go, Calgary was primed and ready to go…and they were playing strong, fundamentel hockey in all 3 areas of the ice.  Those things carried over throughout the entire game…they were positionally sound in the defensive zone and had great back pressure and support.  The sticks and pursuit in the neutral zone made it extremely difficult for Nashville to get any sort of momentum.  And Calgary was great at keeping the puck down low in the offensive zone…the cycle was consistent, and it lead to some great scoring opportunities for the Flames.

What I really liked, and what everyone else will like coming from this game…2 things.  Calgary did a great job of keeping the Predators to the outside.  How did they do that?  Great positional play and great puck support.  The Preds couldn’t do much setting up, because there was always a Flame supporting the play.  And when a 1-on-1 battle set up, the Flames were coming away the victors from those board battles.  Very impressive.

What can you say about Miikka Kiprusoff?  His 2nd consecutive shutout in net, this time making 22 saves for the goose-egg.  As a result, #34 has stretched his shutout string to 129:30…he was named the first star of the game, the 9th time in 14 November games he’s been one of the 3 stars.  He wasn’t overly busy, or called upon to save or steal a game…but he made big saves when called upon, and made sure the Preds couldn’t draw momentum from a timely goal.

This was a game where everyone was good for the Flames…all 4 lines were rolling, with only 10 players playing elss than 10 minutes (Freddie Sjostrom played 9:54, Brian McGrattan played 5:05).  A 3 point night for Curtis Glencross…his first multi-point game of the season.  Both David Moss and Nigel Dawes have 4 game point streaks, while Dawes also has a 4 game goal streak.  Jarome Iginla and Olli Jokinen have 3 game point streaks…Iginla now has 20 points in 14 November games, Jokinen sits with 14 points in 14 November games.  Jokinen now has points in 10 of his last 12 games.

The Flames play in Phoenix on Thursday…follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Steinberg960.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.