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Calgary Flames

Flames vs. Red Wings Recap

The Flames earned their second win of the season with a 4-1 victory in Detroit, but lost Miikka Kiprusoff to injury, as the veteran goalie left the ice following the second period and did not return.

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The Flames took the lead early in this one when captain Jarome Iginla put his team up 1-0 just over three minutes in and never looked back. Players like Iginla and Glencross who couldn’t buy a goal against Chicago both found the back of the net in this one as the Flames went to the dressing room up 2-0 after one.

Detroit cut the Flames’ lead in half when Franzen slipped one past Kipper with Dennis Wideman off for a phantom interference penalty, but Wideman struck back with a goal of his own with just 24 seconds remaining in the middle frame to put the Flames back up by two.

In the second intermission it was reported that Red Wings team doctors were in the Flames room attending to Kipper, who is believed to have suffered a lower body injury in the second period (perhaps when he was bumped by Johan Franzen), but the team is expected to provide more details at practice later this morning. Kiprusoff last had a hip injury in 2005-06 but played through it, and hasn’t been out of the lineup for a significant amount of time since he injured his leg prior to the Flames’ Stanley Cup run in 2003-04.

Roger Millions reported today that Kipper has travelled to Columbus with the team and that the Flames are expected to fill the absent goaltender position this afternoon:

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p><a href=”https://twitter.com/search/%23Flames”>#Flames</a> Kiprusoff with team in Columbus. team to practice with Irving and fill in netminder not on roster early this afternoon</p>&mdash; Roger Millions (@RogMillions) <a href=”https://twitter.com/RogMillions/status/299163054791327744″>February 6, 2013</a></blockquote>

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In the meantime, Leland Irving will be the go-to guy for the Flames. Irving came out to start the third period and played well in what could have been a disastrous outcome for the Flames. I thought he looked calm as he made several solid stops, including one in close on Pavel Datsyuk.

The Flames helped him out by limiting the Wings to just six shots in the third period, and they capitalized again on Detroit’s struggling penalty kill when Mark Giordano put a bomb from the point past Jimmy Howard with just over four minutes remaining to increase the visitor’s lead to 4-1.

The Flames were slightly outshot in this one and finished on the negative side of things possession-wise, but I think that is to be expected when you take score effects into account and the fact that the Flames were leading and the Wings were chasing for nearly the entire game. The Flames struggled in their zone occasionally, particularly with face-offs and give-aways (I’m looking at you Blake Comeau), but even so, they did a good job of limiting more dangerous chances by the Wings in this one, and in the two periods that Kipper did play he looked much stronger than he has in most games thus far.

We should know by later today who’s likely to be in net for Calgary’s next two games tomorrow in Columbus and Saturday in Vancouver (come onnnnnnn Barry Brust!).

by Hayley Mutch