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Sunday, December 19, 1999
Tugging along
Red-hot Flames goaltender draws inspiration from Ottawa counterpart
Fred Brathwaite only had to look 200 ft. last night to see what he wants to become.
Standing in the Ottawa net was Ron Tugnutt, who was Fred Brathwaite a few short years ago.
Given up on, cast aside by an entire league, Tugnutt has since found new life with the Ottawa Senators as one of the league's top goalies.
Brathwaite continues to emulate Tugnutt's battle back into the league, last night handing the Ottawa goalie and his teammates a 2-1 defeat.
It is a roll that shows no signs of abating.
And Brathwaite and his teammates are content to ride the wave all the way into playoff contention.
"For me to see Tugger do that shows that you can get back in the league," said Brathwaite. "I was lucky enough to get a chance to come back and, right now, I'm just trying to take it as far as I can."
"I'm just going with the flow. Brian is giving me a chance to play right now and the team is making it easy a lot of nights."
Despite the fact Ottawa outshot the Flames 36-25, Brathwaite was not called upon to resurrect all the heroics he'd displayed on the recent road trip. Freddie improved his record to 8-7-2 and reduced his impressive GAA below the 2.27 he started the game with.
Not bad for a goalie who was out of the league less than a year ago.
Last night, both teams were content to play a disciplined and, yes, very boring, defensive game that produced little real offence.
No matter, the Flames are content to get points out of eight of their last nine games and stay within a couple wins of a playoff spot.
Calgary opened the scoring a little more than three minutes into the first period on an unusual occurrence for the Flames -- they won a faceoff.
Hnat Domenichelli drew the puck back to the blueline and defenceman Robyn Regehr's long wrist shot somehow slipped through Tugnutt's pads.
Calgary has been awful in the faceoff circle all season but Domenichelli had some rare success centering a line with Bill Lindsay and Cale Hulse.
They are a checking line but proved to be the most offensive of Calgary's forward units when they added a second goal on their next shift.
This time, it was Domenichelli who grabbed a loose puck in the Sens zone and fired a backhand at the net. The puck bounced off the stick of Ottawa defenceman Patrick Traverse and over the shoulder of Tugnutt for a two-goal lead.
Ottawa could only solve Brathwaite on the powerplay, which came late in the first period, thanks to the Flames lone penalty of the night which went to Wade Belak.
Brathwaite could not see a point shot through a screen in front of him, and the puck slipped under his pad to cut the lead to 2-1.
But Brathwaite shut the door the rest of the way.
"Fred played well, he made the key saves," said Senators coach Jacques Martin. "I thought he made a real good save in the third on (Marian) Hossa ... he was sharp."
Tugnutt has been equally sharp in resurrecting his career in Ottawa but was simply outplayed by another goalie trying to follow the path back to respectability blazed by the Sens goalie.
Brathwaite demonstrated for a national TV audience that he is well along that same path.
"When you see a guy like Tugger have success, it just proves to you that all the hard work is worth it," said Brathwaite. "You can have a second life in this league."
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