Miikka Kiprusoff holds Colorado Avalanche off as Calgary Flames win 4-3 -NHL Match Update
Colorado nearly made a complete comeback to force overtime which started late in the second period, but Calgary goalie, Miikka Kiprusoff held on and secured his net as the Flames averted the Avalanche to snap their two game losing streak, 4-3, Saturday night,
November 12, 2011, at the Pepsi Centre in Denver, Colorado, United States.
Kiprusoff was outshot by his counterpart in the Colorado net, Semyon Varlamov, 39-20, and still managed to block 36 of those shots while the latter fell short on four attempts.
"They got some great chances, and Kipper was able to hold the fort", Calgary Flames captain, Jarome Iginla said.
Paul Byron opened the scoring, 2:06 into the first period to inaugurate his very first of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, followed closely by captain Iginla with his fifth nearly four minutes later and Curtis Glencross to give
the Calgary team a commanding lead to enter the second period.
Colorado rookie forward, Gabriel Landeskog, gave the Flames an added man advantage when he was booked for hooking a little before Glencross scored his fifth of the season.
After Lee Stempniak scored Calgary’s fourth and ultimately game-winning goal nearly midway through the second, Colorado players finally realised enough was enough.
Milan Hejduk put Colorado on the scoreboard with less than seven minutes to go in the second period while Matt Duchene fired off a second goal only 26 seconds into the final 20 minutes and David Jones put the Avalanche to within tying it with 4:35 remaining
on the clock.
"They came hard", Kiprusoff said. "Lots of traffic, and we were able to keep the one-goal lead. We were able to hang in there and get the two huge points".
Seeing their sudden and unexpected comeback, Calgary Flames head coach, Brent Sutter, expressed his disappointment in his team allowing the Avalanche to do that.
"It certainly got interesting in the third, and there's no reason for it", Coach Sutter said. "We were up 4-1 and we allowed them to have the momentum. When you have a team down you have to kick them when they're down".
Calgary Flames have the next two at home, starting off with the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday while the Avalanche play a road game against Pittsburgh Penguins the same day.
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