Flame penalty killers have been drawing great raves over the past month-and-a-half.  Monday night they added another — a clutch goal.

   The PK had another perfect night, its 14th in the last 18 games, but Eric Nystrom pretty SHG at 8:56 of the 3rd gave the Flames a 2-1 triumph over Minnesota.

    The Flames have beaten the Wild 8 of the last 9 times they’ve clashed, all of the wins by one goal.

    Nystrom looked like an accomplished scorer when he swooped in after Wild defenseman Brett Burns knocked a puck down perfectly for the big winger to get a breakaway. He put a nifty move on Josh Harding for his 2nd goal of the season and 5th of his 76-game NHL career.  It was Nystrom’s first career SHG as well as GWG. Afterwards he called it the biggest goal of his NHL career.  A few more clutch, highlight goals and he’ll start drawing comparisons to his dad, Bob, who scored a few big goals in helping the NY Islanders win 4-straight Cups in the 80′s.

    Hard to believe that the Flames could have points in their last 8 games (5-0-3) with captain Jarome Iginla having only 2 goals — both in the same game — over that stretch. As well Dion Phaneuf hasn’t gained a scoring point in any of the 8 contests. Mike Cammalleri has 2 goals in the 8 games.  Its big sign that the club has come of age with scoring depth.

   Miikka Kiprusoff has been the goalie in the last 7 of those games allowing 17 goals against while providing the type of clutch goaltending needed for success.

   Wednesday the Flames endeavor to do something they’ve never done previously — go through the Yuletide Season (Dec 15-Jan 1) without losing a game in regulation time. They are 5-0-1 over that strtetch heading into the New Year’s Eve match with Edmonton. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 9:42 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.