Flames hand Jackets 3-1 Loss
By Dave Seaman, Columbus Wired (photos by Tom Theodore)

The red-hot Calgary Flames came into Nationwide Arena Tuesday night and burned the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-1 in front of 13,181.

It was the season-best sixth straight win for the Flames, all away from the Pengrowth Saddledome.

Adrian Aucoin, Alex Tanguay and Jarome Iginla scored for Calgary, while Kristian Hulelius had two assists. In the last four games, Huselius has 14 points.

Calgary got an early goal with a two-man advantage and sat back the rest of the game despite being out shot 37-23. The game was similar to the Jackets 2-0 loss at Boston Saturday, where the Bruins scored early and sat back on the lead.

“They battle hard every night,” Jackets winger Curtis Glencross, who scored the Jackets goal, said. “We just have to play like them—battle hard every night, get in front of the net and go to the greasy areas.”

After a strong October, the team have fallen back into the Jackets of old—no consistency—and it shows. The team is not battling like they started the season. After starting 7-3-1 in October, Columbus went 3-7-3 in November and 3-3-2 so far this month.

It doesn’t help that the team is without Fredrik Modin, Michael Peca and David Vyborny. After the game with the Flames, Kris Beech and Manny Malhotra were also banged up.

“We had a good start and we were not thinking” Jackets captain Adam Foote said. “It seems like when we have a couple of losses, we complicate it too much and worry about making a mistake. Whatever it is, we just have to get away from that and just go out and play hard.”

The Flames took advantage of a two-man advantage to take an early lead. Aucoin took a pass from Hulelius and put it over the shoulder of Jackets goaltender Pascal Leclaire, who was screened on the shot at 3:37. Calgary skated for 65 seconds with the two-man advantage after Adam Foote got called for a cross check.

Tanguay made it 2-0 with a low slap shot from the left circle at 3:49 of the second with both teams skating a man down.

The Jackets got on the board at 6:39 when Glencross took a nifty pass from Kris Russell, settled the puck with his skate and beat Flames’ goaltender Mikka Kiprusoff with a backhand shot on a two-on-none break.

No sooner than the Jackets thought they were back in the game, Iginla scored on a rebound to put the Flames back up by two, 3-1. Iginla has a five-game goal streak.

Now with six straight road wins, the Flames head back to Calgary.

“We played a hard road game tonight and again Kiprusoff was good when we needed him,” Calgary coach Mike Keenan said. “They pressed us hard and special teams had a significant difference tonight—a power play goal and some good penalty killing.”

The Flames were one-for-six on the power play, while holding the Jackets scoreless on six power play attempts. Kiprusoff had 36 goals. Leclaire had 20 in the loss.

“Our power play has really been in and out all year,” Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said. “We haven’t needed it except to score big goals in the last two games and we didn’t get it done.”

Columbus hosts Los Angeles Friday at 7 p.m. looking to snap its two-game losing streak.