Stars-Flames thoughts

I thought the penalty call on Nicklas Grossman was bad, but I don’t look at it as the key to the game. It stands out because it happened at the end, but there was a lot of things that happened earlier in the game that were pretty important in how the game ended up turning out on this night.

The Stars missing on all those power plays in the first period, including that five-on-three, were pretty big. They had another power play in the second period too. That’s a total of five power plays and a 30-17 shots advantage through the first two periods and they were down 1-0.

Sure, they got the lead on goals by James Neal and Loui Eriksson in the third period. But then they couldn’t hold the lead. Those were big parts of the game too.

They played well. Very well. There was a lot to like about what they did out there. I thought they were the better team and really took it to the Flames at times.

But Calgary got a great game from Curtis McElhinney in goal and Jarome Iginla came up with two big goals and set up Daymond Langkow’s game-tying tally in the final minute.

A team can dominate play, but some good goaltending, a few good plays from the other side and a few bounces that go one way or the other can render that domination irrelevant on the scoreboard. That’s hockey.

Overall, the end result was disappointing but there were a lot of positives. 

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