Wow, what a game! The Calgary Flames hand the San Jose Sharks their first regulation home loss of the season. In fact, it’s the first time the Sharks have lost in regulation in the Shark Tank since February 14 of last season (that is truly unbelievable). This game was intense and had everything you would expect from two of the premiere teams in the NHL. It felt very much like this game was being played in May.

Watching the Oilers vs. Wild game just prior to watching the Flames vs. Sharks was like watching a WHL pre-season game prior to an NHL playoff game.

I don’t recall seeing a Flames squad with this much confidence. They seem undaunted. They are calm, cool, and collective in any situation and don’t seem to panic when they fall behind by a goal or two. This speaks to the maturity of the club and the fantastic job being done by the coaching staff.

Curtis Glencross (one of the phenomenal off-season pickups by Sutter) was incredible at both ends of the ice in the game. It’s unfortunate that his name didn’t show up on the score sheet - he very much deserved a point or two tonight. I am curious to know what the Oilers management was thinking when they let this guy go. It was also nice to see Phaneuf get that monkey off his back. A hard working goal and a game winner to boot.

Kipper continued his stellar play tonight. His confidence level seems to be rising exponentially along with the rest of the team. After his shaky start to the season, he has really picked up his game. He leads the NHL with games won and is now 4 games ahead of Nabokov in second place. I know Kipper really likes to play a ton of games, and he seems to be handling the pressure fine. I only hope he can continue to perform at this level while playing so many games.

This weekends games should be amazing!

Despite the Flames loss, game 6 turned out to be a very entertaining game with lots of hits, goals, and end-to-end play. However, the Flames fell just shy of completing the comeback again, and fall 3-2 in the series. Needless to say, Sunday’s game in Calgary is their most important game of the year.

Things I noticed from the game 6 are:

Positives:

With the exception of a few costly giveaways, I felt that the Flames play was their best of the series. They managed 36 shots on goal (compared to 10 in the previous game), and had several excellent scoring opportunities.

Kipper had a strong game, even though he allowed 4 goals in 26 shots. To be fair, the goals that were scored were very difficult goals.

Iginla looked great. This guy plays with so much intensity and is a true leader - you can tell this guy wants to win more than anyone else on the ice. His supporting cast needs to pick up their play.

Negatives:

Matthew Lombardi - this guy has amazing speed and can blow by most defenders, however, I don’t think he knows what to do with the puck when he gets close to the goal.

The secondary scoring has dried up. The majority of the goals are coming from their top 4-5 players, while most of the other players aren’t doing much at all. Huselius is ABSOLUTELY invisible and might as well be riding the pine and let a young guy come up from the minors.

The Big Guns for the San Jose Sharks have finally showed up and last night, Marleau, Cheechoo, Campbell, and Thorton lead the way in the Sharks win. Hopefully in Sunday’s game the Flames will get back to their old ways of shutting these guys down.

Here we go, it’s playoff time! The time of the year when televisions in homes across the world are illuminated for hours each day with the exciting sport that is Hockey. Sports bars everywhere are filled with crazed hockey fans, cheering on their team and jeering the rival fans. And I go into hiding each night in front of my Television, remote in hand, flipping giddily between games.

This year, the Flames have the daunting task of taking on the San Jose Sharks, who have been outstanding lately with only three regulation losses in their last 23 games. The addition of Defenseman Brian Campbell at the trade deadline seems to have heightened the skill level the already extremely talented San Jose Sharks turning them into the hottest team down the stretch.

Although the Flames have a winning record this year against the Sharks (3-1), they are definitely the underdogs going into this series. The Flames slid butt-first into 7th place in the Western Conference (thanks Oilers!) and are really going to need to pick up their game play this first series if they want to move on. What do the Flames need to do if they want to win this series? (1) The Defense will need to be stellar and (2) the forecheck will need to be intense. (3) They will need at least their top 2 lines (3 would be nice) contributing to the scoresheet on a nightly basis and (4) they need to out-play the Sharks physically.

Go Flames Go!