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It was Miikka Kiprusoff’s night.
And nothing that happened in the game that followed his jersey retirement ceremony was going to come close to overshadowing the Calgary Flames legend’s well-deserved moment of recognition.
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And for roughly two and a half periods, the Flames (30-25-5) didn’t do much that would have overshadowed anything, really.
Then, they came alive.
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With goals from — who else? — Nazem Kadri and Blake Coleman, the Flames overturned a two-goal deficit against the Pittsburgh Penguins (27-23-8).
And then, with under a minute to go, Mikael Backlund pounced on a bit of sloppy puck play by Kris Letang and fed it to Yegor Sharangovich, who needed no invitation to rip it top corner for his second of the game.
And just like that, a game the Flames seemed destined to lose was suddenly a 4-3 win.
It was far from perfect and often was anything but pretty. But the Flames showed yet again that they don’t have any quit in them.
Trade away some of their best players. They’ll keep playing hard.
Open up a two-goal, third period lead. They’ll keep coming.
The Flames now find themselves on a five-game win streak despite management having traded away Elias Lindholm and Chris Tanev in the last five weeks. While they have little room for error, Saturday night’s victory pulled them to within five points of the Los Angeles Kings, who are sitting in the Western Conference’s second wildcard spot.
And while the focus around the hockey world may be on the players the Flames are trading away, they’re getting solid production from the guys who are still around.
That’s especially true of Coleman, who leads the team with 25 goals, and Kadri and Sharangovich, neither of whom are far behind.
It was Kiprusoff’s night. But the Flames made sure the celebrations didn’t end when his jersey was raised to the rafters.
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