Boo-birds not about to rattle Giordano
Mark Giordano wasn’t going to let the boo-birds bother him.
In fact, the Calgary Flames captain tried to put a positive spin on the, uh, special treatment at Honda Center in Anaheim.
“It’s good. You know when you have the puck,” Giordano quipped. “And if it slides off your stick, you’ll know that, too. So it actually can help you.”
With Ducks fans still fuming about his knee-on-knee collision with defenceman Cam Fowler late in the regular season, Giordano was booed repeatedly and relentlessly in Games 1 and 2 in Anaheim, something he won’t have to worry about as the series shifts back to the Saddledome.
After a pair of losses at Honda Center, the Flames return home in a 2-0 hole in this best-of-seven set.
Giordano & Co. stayed overnight in SoCal after Saturday’s heartbreaker, although there was probably a lot of tossing and turning in their hotel beds as they tried to digest a 3-2 setback that included a controversial wave-off on what woulda-coulda-shoulda been the go-ahead goal late in the second.
Discipline was their undoing in the third, with Ducks star Ryan Getzlaf scoring the game-winner — an attempted pass that glanced off a skate — while Dougie Hamilton served a minor penalty for holdingthe-stick. To make matters worse, T.J. Brodie was banished for a needless cross-check at about the time the Flames would have pulled their goalie for a six-on-five advantage as they tried to force overtime.
“We had moments in the first game where I thought we were the better team. Tonight, I thought we had a lot more moments where we pushed the pace,” Giordano said after Saturday’s gut-punch. “Again, we have to take less penalties, but they won on a bounce tonight. We had a lot of positives. I know it’s playoffs and moral victories don’t matter, but if we stick to our game and we don’t let the afterthe-whistle stuff come into play, I think we’ll be fine.”
It’s no surprise that Giordano, in his first taste of Stanley Cup playoff action in nearly a decade, has been among Calgary’s best on both nights.
The 33-year-old averaged 26:03 in front of the boo-birds at Honda Center, nearly four minutes more than any other Flames skater.
He’ll log a pile of ice time again in Monday’s Game 3 at the Saddledome (8 p.m., CBC/Sportsnet 960 Fan). Except in his own barn, he won’t hear the howls every time the puck is on his stick.
“Gio has been fantastic,” praised Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan after Sunday’s afternoon arrival back in Calgary.
“He’s been a horse back there, and you don’t expect anything else out of him. He’s just that good of a player and a leader. I think he’s been really good for us. He hasn’t disappointed at all.
“He’s almost in playoff mode all the time, this guy, but he is certainly dialed in right now.”