FLAMES HOLD OFF FIESTY BLACKHAWKS TO EVEN SERIES

Despite blowing a 4-1 lead, the Calgary Flames recovered in the final period to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks 6-4 in a wild affair to tie their best of seven opening round NHL playoff series at two games apiece.  The series now shifts back to Chicago for game five on Saturday night, with game six back at Calgary’s Pengrowth Saddledome on Monday.  A potential game seven would take place Wednesday in Chicago.

The Blackhawks scored first as Patrick Kane netted his first goal of the playoffs assisted by Patrick Sharp and Brent Seabrook at 4:40 of the opening period.  That seemed to awaken the Flames who surged into control of the game by scoring four unanswered goals starting with Jarome Iginla’s power play tally at 5:47 of the first period assisted by Michael Cammalleri and Dion Phaneuf.  The teams headed to the dressing room for the first intermission tied at 1-1, but the Flames’s onslaught got underway quickly in the second period as Olli Jokinen scored unassisted just :50 seconds into the middle session.  Jokinen would assist on Adrian Aucoin’s goal at 8:10 (Eric Nystrom got the other assist) as the Flames increased their lead to 3-1.  Jokinen would score again at 9:16 assisted by Iginla and Nystrom and it appeared that a rout might be in the offing.

Instead, to employ a boxing metaphor, Calgary had ‘punched themselves out’ and the Blackhawks quickly seized the momentum.  Kris Versteeg’s power play goal at 12:13 assisted by Brian Campbell and Cam Barker made it 4-2, and the same line struck again at 16:44 with Barker scoring the goal and Versteeg assisting along with Samuel Pahlsson to make it a one goal game.  Pahlsson would then take his turn in the spotlight, scoring on the power play at 19:27 assisted by Campbell and Versteeg to tie the game at 4-4 heading into the final period.

The Flames managed to regain their composure during the break and would score the eventual game winner at the 13:04 mark when Eric Nystrom lit the lamp assisted by Cory Sarich and Daymond Langkow.  Jarome Iginla would score into an empty net in the final minute to punctuate the Flames’ hard fought victory. 

Jokinen was named the game’s ‘first star’, and spoke of his two goal effort after the contest:

"It's nice to score, but it's much nicer to win games. It felt a lot better when we scored that fifth goal than when I scored my own goals."

With the victory secured, decisive goal scorer Eric Nystrom could chuckle about the blown lead:

"Holy cow, protecting leads. It's amazing how it's easier to play coming from behind. Sometimes when you have a lead you sit on it a little bit, but tonight we persevered and battled hard to win this game. Now the series is 0-0 again."

In the other dressing room, Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews talked about the disappointing loss:

"It's going to be a long flight home tomorrow. It's far from over. It's frustrating and yes, we were up two games and you can cry about that all day about having those first two games and then letting them have the last two and letting them get back in the series. But we knew they weren't going anywhere so we're just going to have to battle and get momentum swinging back in our favor a little bit.”

Chicago dominated the head to head series during the regular season, winning all four meetings.  Before their back to back losses in Calgary in games three and four they had defeated the Flames six straight times.