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Thursday, October 14, 1999
Val-halla!
He was rendered invisible.
But persistence paid off for the diminutive Flames forward.
With just 1:55 left in overtime, Bure shot once, twice, and finally beat Canucks goalie Garth Snow for the game winner as the Flames edged the Canucks 4-3.
"That wasn't one of the prettiest goals but it sure felt awesome," said the scoring hero. "We needed a break like that to finally get a win in overtime."
It was the Flames' first win of the season -- ending a 0-3-1 start that had many questioning the abilities of the latest Flames lineup.
But Bure's goal answered many of the critics' questions.
"I've been telling people we're not frustrated," said Flames coach Brian Sutter. "The biggest thing is we didn't have our full team the first three games but yeah, this was a big win for us."
Added Bure: "Sure, we maybe had a slow start but this shows other teams that nothing will come easy against us."
Until Bure's late heroics, the Flames appeared to be skating to their second consecutive overtime tie, against the undefeated Vancouver Canucks in a division battle.
Cory Stillman, the hero in the Flames' dramatic comeback tie with Carolina the previous game, scored twice to pace the Flames.
But it was a former Flame, Andrew Cassels, who prevented the Flames from securing their first win of the season in regulation time with a second-period powerplay goal to send the game into overtime.
The Flames went into the game suffering badly from opening-period jitters -- they'd yet to score once in the first period in any of their previous four games.
That misfortune looked to continue when the Flames blew an early powerplay, giving up a shorthanded goal to the Canucks.
On the play, Bure got caught up ice and the Canucks broke in on a two-on-one with snipers Mark Messier and Markus Naslund.
Messier's perfect pass was one-timed past Grant Fuhr by Naslund for the early lead.
But just 22 seconds later, the Flames atoned for their earlier miscue, and ended their first-period futility. Again, it was Stillman providing the offence.
Defenceman Phil Housley fired a pretty cross-ice pass to Stillman at the far faceoff circle and he one-timed a slapshot past Snow to tie the game.
But then it was the Canucks' turn to reply on the powerplay.
Cassels sent a pass from the corner out to an unchecked Alex Mogilny in front of the net and Fuhr had little chance on the quick shot.
Normally a couple of goals in a period is enough to get a lead on the Flames, but centre Marc Savard had something to prove. After being sat out Monday for poor play, Savard was looking to put himself back in the good books.
He did that with a great set-up of the Flames second goal scored by another underachieving forward, Andrei Nazarov.
Stillman's second goal of the game, again on the powerplay, gave them a much-deserved lead in the second period, a goal set up by a fine rush/pass by Jarome Iginla.
But it was Cassels exacting a little personal revenge of his own, tapping in the rebound of his own wraparound attempt later in the period on a powerplay that sent the two teams into the third period tied at 3-3, setting the stage for Bure's heroics.
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