NINE IS FINE FOR FLAMES
Calgary prevails in goal fest
FLAMES 9, BLUE JACKETS 6
The dads must have been distressed.
Then dazzled. Delighted.
And by the final buzzer, perhaps a bit dazed.
From too hard to watch to hard to believe, the Calgary Flames erased a three-goal deficit Tuesday and stormed to a 9-6 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena, a wacky, wild capper to their dads’ trip.
“It was probably pretty rowdy for the forwards’ and maybe a couple of the defencemen’s dads,” said Flames goalie Mike Smith, who watched an ugly first period from the bench before earning the win in relief of David Rittich.
“And I’m sure that Keith Tkachuk has seen a couple of those games back when he played. For my dad, he comes in shaking his head a little bit like, ‘Phew, I’m glad that’s over.’ And I am, too.
“But I think it’s been a fun trip for the dads. The dads went 3-0, including the game at home, so I think everyone is pretty excited about how it turned out.”
The fathers of the Flames watched Tuesday’s thriller from a private suite and it must have been a subdued bunch when the Blue Jackets opened a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes.
Although one of the proud papas predicted a comeback during the first intermission, that seemed like quite a long shot when Smith received a rude welcome, with the hosts notching their fourth goal of the night at the 49-second mark of the middle stanza.
“Sean Monahan’s dad, he said, ‘We’ve got them right where we want them,’” said Paul Giordano, father of Calgary’s captain. “And it worked out for us. He called it.”
John Monahan’s sharpshooting son played a key role in making it happen.
Sean Monahan and close pal Johnny Gaudreau both counted four points — two tallies apiece, plus a pair of assists — in Tuesday’s throwback, while Matthew Tkachuk scored once and set up two others.
TJ Brodie, Austin Czarnik, Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm also tickled the twine for the Flames, while Cam Atkinson led the charge for Columbus with a hat trick.
“We were bad in the first, there’s no sugar-coating it,” said Mark Giordano, the Flames’ heart and soul, who contributed three assists.
“I didn’t think we were moving very well. They looked like the better team. But it seemed like after their fourth goal we decided to start playing and turn the switch.
“A weird one, but it’s good to be on the right side of that one.” Good for the boys.
Good for the dads, too, with a grand total of 27 special guests on this two-game getaway to Chicago and Columbus.
“There were probably a lot of momentum changes in the booth, just like there was in the game,” Giordano said with a grin, envisioning the scene in the fathers’ suite. “It was great to have them and they weren’t bored by any means. That’s for sure.”
Added Hanifin: “I can only imagine. When we were coming back, they must have been fired up.”
Shortly after Atkinson scored his second of the night to give the Blue Jackets a 4-1 cushion, Monahan deflected Giordano’s wrister from the point for a power-play strike.
The out-of-towners were just — or finally — getting warmed up.
Lindholm roofed a wicked shot less than a minute later.
Again on the man advantage, Tkachuk cleaned up the leftovers after one leaked through Sergei Bobrovsky in the home crease.
Fifty seconds later, Hanifin pounced on a between-the-legs pass from Tkachuk to give the Flames an unlikely lead.
Before anybody had scraped their jaws off the floor, Brodie cashed in a rebound.
Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno cut into the damage on a breakaway, but Monahan (again) and Gaudreau (again) scored early in the third period to keep the dads hooting and hollering.
Not that the nail-biting was quite done, either.
“At 8-6, I still think we have a really good chance,” said Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella, referring to Atkinson’s hat trick goal. “They score that ninth one and that took the wind out of our sails. Yeah, imagine me saying that, huh?”
Nothing about this night was easy to imagine.
Except, apparently, for John Monahan.
“We just don’t feel like we’re ever out of a game,” said Flames head coach Bill Peters. “We knew that we could play better. We weren’t impressed with ourselves through 20, through 30, through 40 …
“And we just kept getting better after each period.”