Flames Lose, Blackhawks Take Series
April 28, 2009 by Jeanne Dupuis
Filed under Calgary Flames, Chicago Blackhawks, NHL Playoffs
The Chicago Blackhawks doused the struggling Calgary Flames last night in Game 6 in the Saddledome. The Flames seemed to come out strong but it just wasn’t enough. They ended up losing 4-1 and it was really just a sad, sad game.
For the fourth season in a row, the Flames have left the playoffs with a whimper in the quarterfinals and the reasons for this repetitive performance is anyone’s guess. Tonight, the younger, faster Blackhawks put an end to Calgary’s run for the Cup but I’m not sure this was a game that was decided by offensive play.
In my opinion, this game boiled down to goaltending. The Blackhawks might have scored four goals but they didn’t have to work very hard. I knew it was bad but it wasn’t until I looked at the boxscore to write this post that I realized that they only took 15 shots on net and Flames netminder, Miikka Kiprusoff, actually let in three of them (the last goal was an empty-netter). After being so upset when he was pulled by coach, Mike Keenan, in Game 5, I’m shocked that Kipper wasn’t in better form.
His Chicago counterpart, Nikolai Khabibulin, allowed just one of the 44 shots he faced to trickle into the net and, even then, the goal scored by Calgary’s Todd Bertuzzi was pretty much impossible to save. The Bulin Wall definitely came up big for his team tonight while Kiprusoff seemed out of his depth.
image: TSN
oh man. they did really try that game, but the bulin wall was amazing and kipper…………………pretty bad