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Saturday, November 20, 1999
Three cheers!
Prior to the opening faceoff, Grant Fuhr was honoured for 400 wins with a solid silver stick.
After the final buzzer, Freddie Brathwaite was honoured for 28 saves, with a spin as last night's first star.
Last season's folk hero added to his local legend last night, keying a stunning 3-1 Flames' victory over the absurdly-talented Detroit Red Wings.
"Fred-DIE! Fred-DIE! Fred-DIE!" the crowd chanted.
Finally, there was some electricity in the building.
Brathwaite was at his best against Wings captain Steve Yzerman, on a hunt for his 600th career goal. And the little netminder got some solid support, Jeff Shantz stopping a Pat Verbeek shot to deny Detroit a goal.
The Flames led 1-0 after one period, 2-0 after two and Hnat Domenichelli put it on ice 1:28 into the third, firing a wide-angle wrist shot past the Medicine Hat kid, Chris Osgood. Detroit ruined Brathwaite's shutout at 11:57, Viktor Kozlov sprinting between Robyn Regehr and Bobby Dollas, deking the goalie and slipping in a beauty.
It couldn't ruin the evening for either Brathwaite or the Flames, however.
In context, how improbable was this? Consider:
* The Flames were a team that had never led after two periods.
* A team that had held a lead for only 48 minutes and 33 seconds of 1,165 minutes of playing time this season.
*A team that had not erected a two-goal lead in 19 previous games.
The Wings, meantime, were coming off a 7-2 molestation of the Canucks at GM Place on Wednesday, unbeaten in five (4-0-1) and had scored 13 goals in their previous two outings.
Continually flirting with suicide, the Flames nonetheless escaped to the dressing room for the second intermission having improved on their situation.
Usually, any team that puts the Red Wing powerplay on the ice three times in a period is courting outright disaster. But the Flames did, and managed a second goal. A sloppy drop pass by Brendan Shanahan, nowhere near its intended target, Larry Murphy, allowed Calgary to turn up ice.
Carrying the puck into the Red Wing zone, Phil Housley, who'd been caught up the ice on the original odd-man rush led by Shanahan, dropped a short pass to Val Bure then squirted between the two defending Red Wings, Murphy and Sergei Fedorov, untouched.
Bure quickly returned the favour, skimming a pass to Housley for a lovely redirect.
Meanwhile, Brathwaite was looking all-world.
He slid across to stack the pads and rob Yzerman on consecutive whacks; took a Marc Rodgers deflection on the short hop; then made an unbelievable stop on Yzerman again, a Nik Lidstrom shot sailing high off the glass and kicking out the other side to the Wings captain.
But Brathwaite somehow stabbed his skate/pad against the post and denied Stevie Y.
The Wings appeared to be on cruise control through an even first period, which ended with the Flames ahead 1-0.
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