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Thursday, November 11, 1999
OT, oh joy!
Plucky Flames just can't lose in extra session
Hard to believe now that they were actually one of the votes against 4-on-4 overtime.
"Irony," said general manager Al Coates after confirming that fact, "is a beautiful thing ..."
The 10-point Calgary Flames tackling the 24-point San Jose Sharks? The 13th-place team in the conference tackling the No. 1 team in the NHL? Hockey's most-scored-upon outfit tackling hockey's highest-scoring bunch?
Comparable, on the surface, to Pauly Shore tackling Hamlet on Broadway.
It looked a cruel mismatch.
But get these Flames to overtime, and all bets are off.
"We just seem to have confidence," said Cory Stillman, almost at a loss to explain this ongoing OT magic that produced a stunning 4-3 victory against the Sharks last night.
"We feel comfortable. We've played in so many of these things now. With 4-on-4, all that open ice, you'd figure it'd favour the highly-skilled teams. Well, we may not have the most talent in the league but we're tenacious and when we check, check, check, and create turnovers, we have enough ability to capitalize."
The Flames are now 5-0-2 in overtime, and 0-9 in regulation.
Stillman hit for his first goal in 11 games, on a rare OT powerplay. San Jose captain Owen Nolan had been banished for an innocent-looking trip of Stillman inside the Calgary zone with 2:22 left in the five-minute bonus.
Nolan had earlier rung a shot from the high slot off the post with Grant Fuhr beaten.
That miss came back to haunt the Sharks. Because Stillman, near the post to Mike Vernon's left, took one crack, stuck his hands in the air in celebration, then took another poke at the puck.
Finally, there was no debate about its authenticity -- 36.6 seconds remained.
"I was certain the first one was in," Stillman said, shaking his head. "(Vernon) brought it back out over the line with his glove. So I had my hands in the air, yeah, but when I saw the light wasn't on, I went after it again. You don't want to be leaving those things up to the video replay because you just never know."
In overtime, the Flames do know.
"It sure would be nice to win in 60 minutes once in a while," said Fuhr, who shrugged off a brutal second goal to move closer to Glenn Hall's 407 wins all-time.
Calgary staged another one of its late-game comebacks, tying the score 3-3 at 14:05. Jarome Iginla finished off a crafty three-way passing play, on a delayed penalty to the Sharks' Patrick Marleau, to send the game into OT. Phil Housley took the zone on the rush and zipped a pass across to Marc Savard. Savard in turn tapped it diagonally to Iginla, leaving Vernon high and dry.
For Iginla, it was his second goal of the season and second in two games. Savard, meanwhile, shone for the Flames. He contributed two assists and his feistiness had the Sharks in a positive froth all night.
Asked about the tripping call to Nolan, Sharks' coach Darryl Sutter said: "You'll have to ask him (referee Kerry Fraser) ... it was a marginal call.
"The puck went in the net, the red light came on and the game was over. We were done 20 seconds earlier than we would've liked."
Alexander Korolyuk had staked the Sharks to a 3-2 lead midway through the final frame.
Val Bure, with his 11th, and Robyn Regehr, with his first NHL goal, were the other Flame snipers.
Marco Sturm and ex-Flame Stephane Matteau also scored for San Jose.
The Flames close out their four game homestand with a visit from Colorado Saturday night.
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