Calgary Herald

SHOOTOUT THRILLER

Flames burn Hawks

- WES GILBERTSON wgilbertso­n@postmedia.com twitter.com/WesGilbert­son

Admittedly, it’s not the drought that folks in the Windy City were buzzing about, not with the Chicago Cubs four wins away from their first World Series crown since 1908.

For the Calgary Flames, though, it seemed like close enough to forever since they’d last found the back of the net on the power play.

“Once that starts going ... ” Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan had declared after Monday’s morning skate at United Center. “It’s going to help our whole game.” It sure did. Sam Bennett and Sean Monahan each scored man-advantage markers as the Flames delivered their best outing of this frustratin­g fall in Monday’s meeting with the Chicago Blackhawks, and Kris Versteeg made it count with a deke in the seventh round of the shootout as the crew from Calgary claimed a 3-2 triumph in one of the NHL’s toughest buildings.

“I was hoping somebody would ask me about the power play tonight, because I’ve been asked the past six games,” Gulutzan said in his post-game scrum. “We did get two tonight. That’s pretty good in the National Hockey League.”

Gulutzan has been preaching that the Flames (2-4-1) wouldn’t win many games if they didn’t start to win the special-teams battle. On this night, they won both. Flames netminder Brian Elliott made sure of it, kicking aside 31 shots for his first victory in Calgary’s crest. His best work was a spectacula­r toe save on red-hot Richard Panik with about two ticks left on the clock in regulation.

Elliott denied seven more Blackhawks in the shootout before Versteeg finally scored the lone goal in the skills competitio­n.

“Ells was unbelievab­le,” Bennett said. “He was definitely our best player tonight.”

“I definitely wanted that one,” Elliott added. “We haven’t been playing like we wanted to and the guys came out and had a heck of an effort. I just wanted to stop as many as I could back there.”

The Flames arrived in this Cubbies-crazed city with the NHL’s most putrid power play stats, fumbling and bumbling through an 0-for-21 funk that stretched back to the third stanza on opening night.

With Blackhawks rookie Tyler Motte busted for tripping less than five minutes after Monday’s opening faceoff, enough was enough.

Chicago’s masked man, Corey Crawford, couldn’t squeeze his mitt on Dougie Hamilton’s wrister from the right circle, with both Bennett and Micheal Ferland swatting at the puck in a chaotic scene around the crease. The official scorer credited Bennett with the last touch.

The Flames’ power play, believe it or not, struck again on their second opportunit­y of the night.

Johnny Gaudreau teed up his captain with a long-range, nolook picture-perfect backhand pass from along the boards and although Mark Giordano’s blast from the blue-line was stopped by Crawford, it was any easy cleanup job for Monahan for the rebound marker.

In between, Patrick Kane scored for the Blackhawks on a wicked one-timer. The hosts tied it up early in the third on an oopsie by Calgary’s T.J. Brodie, who tried to knock down a cross-crease pass attempt but instead deflected the puck through Elliott’s five-hole.

The Flames, though, deserve full marks for Monday’s performanc­e.

They finished 2-for-5 on the power play, boosting their season average from four per cent to 10 per cent.

Gulutzan pointed to another telling stat — that they committed just four turnovers after 27 giveaways in Saturday’s 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Blues at the Saddledome.

“We needed that,” Versteeg said. “We knew what our problems were, we talked about it, and this is really the first game we came through with it.”

The Flames will cap their twogames-in-two-nights road-trip with Tuesday’s rematch against the Blues at Scottrade Center (6 p.m., Sportsnet/Sportsnet 960 The Fan).

“I tell the guys this all the time — you are what you repeatedly do,” Gulutzan said. “The challenge for us will be to duplicate this. We want to play this way so that every night, you’re in a position to have success. Now, it’s not going to go your way every night, but you do certain things night-in, night-out like the good teams do, and you’ll always put yourselves in a position to have success. We did that tonight, and now we have to repeat.”

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 ?? CHARLES REX ARBOGAST/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Calgary goalie Brian Elliott goes down low to deny the Blackhawks’ Artem Anisimov on Monday night during the Flames’ shootout win in Chicago. Elliott made 31 saves and stopped all seven shots in the shootout as the Flames won 3-2.
CHARLES REX ARBOGAST/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Calgary goalie Brian Elliott goes down low to deny the Blackhawks’ Artem Anisimov on Monday night during the Flames’ shootout win in Chicago. Elliott made 31 saves and stopped all seven shots in the shootout as the Flames won 3-2.

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