Calgary Flames bounce back in home-opener
After an embarrassing loss to their provincial rivals to open the season, the Calgary Flames bounced back on Sunday with a strong effort to defeat the Los Angeles Kings 3-1 in their home-opener
in front of a sell-out crowd of more than 19 thousand at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
Craig Conroy, who was a healthy scratch in the Flames loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday scored the winning goal early in the third period giving the Flames a 2-0 lead. The 39-year-old
veteran and fan favourite was inserted into the line-up due to an injury to Raitis Ivanans. Conroy was surprised his shot went in after firing it from about 40 feet out.
"I didn't even see it go in, to be honest, I looked and saw the red light go on and I was like 'that went in?"' said Conroy, who scored just three goals in 63 games last year. "Maybe it
just surprised me more than anything, I don't know if I've scored from out there with a wrist shot in a long time."
"It was a chance to get in and if you don't do anything, you're probably going to come right back out, there's lots of guys here," said Conroy. "So, you just want to prove that you can
help the team and you can do some good things."
Flames forward Curtis Glencross opened the scoring with a short-handed goal midway through the second period after Kings defenceman Jack Johnson turned the puck over at the Flames' blue
line. Glencross raced down the ice to pick up the puck deep in the Kings' zone and slid a backhand past Kings goalie Jonathan Bernier.
"I was definitely thinking I was running out of real estate. I had to put a little extra reach on it to try and get it around him and I just got enough," said Glencross.
Johnson attributed the turnover which led to the goal to bad luck.
"We had some troubles just getting the puck to settle down for us on the power play there. They're aggressive and they got a good bounce and they took advantage of it but still, that wasn't
the end of the world, there was lots of hockey still to be played," said the Kings defenceman.
Dustin Brown cut the Flames' lead to 2-1 with just under six minutes to play in the third period, however Flames forward Niklas Hagman put the game away scoring into an empty net with
just 23 seconds left.
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