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Flames one win away after taking Game 5!
By GREG HARRIS, MOP Squad Staff Writer
Jun 5, 2004 - 7:38:00 PM |
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He's no Theo Fleury, but Oleg Saprykin was about to mimic Theo's infamous goal celebration after scoring the overtime winner on Thursday night until he realized that he was in enemy territory. Of course, in giving Calgary a 3-2 series lead heading home for game 6, he certainly had reason to celebrate!
Unlike game 4, where the Flames found themselves trailing early after a couple of crucial officiating mistakes, they actually jumped out to an early lead this time, as they were the benefactors of an early penalty call against Tampa Bay. Toni Lydman, who returned to the lineup after missing 20 games due to an injury suffered in the first round against Vancouver, made his presence felt immediately as his point shot was tipped by Martin Gelinas through the legs of Khabibulin. For Gelinas, it was his eigth goal of the postseason, good for second on the team behind Jarome Iginla.
Both the Flames and Lightning have outstanding records in the playoffs when scoring the game's first goal, and once again, the first goal went to the winning team. The Flames held the lead for most of the first, but with less than a minute left, a costly turnover in the defensive zone lead to a goal by Martin St Louis.
The Flames answered back, and regained the advantage in the second period, on a great individual effort by Jarome Iginla. He came down the right side of the ice, and fired a shot off the far post and into the net for his league leading thirteenth postseason goal, giving the Flames a 2-1 lead after two periods.
The Lightning tied things up again early in the third. Rhett Warriner was called for holding 31 seconds into the period, and Tampa tied things up right off of the ensuing faceoff, as it was Frederik Modin with the goal off the feed from Brad Richards. The Flames were unable to get an equalizer, and the two teams went into overtime tied at 2.
After fourteen minutes of overtime, not much had happened, and it almost looked like there would be another overtime period. That's when Jarome Iginla started to turn back the clock. Rather than playing your average 40 second shift, in overtime Iginla's shifts would last well over a minute. Adding to this was the fact that the Flames captain lost his helmet when he was checking into the boards. Nevertheless, the retro styled Iggy Stardust fired a shot from the side boards that was stopped by Khabibulin, but the rebound went right to Saprykin, who netted the game winner.
After silencing the so-called fans in Tampa, the Flames now head home for game 6, where they will win the Cup on home ice. Calgarians are gonna party like it's 1989 this weekend, that's for sure!
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