• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Iginla, Tanguay help Flames crown Kings

Dec 30, 2006 - 9:13 AM CALGARY, Alberta (Ticker) -- Kristian Huselius put plenty of icing on the cake for the Calgary Flames.

Huselius scored two empty-net goals as the Flames held off a late charge and posted a 6-4 victory over the Los Angeles Kings.

The triumph snapped a three-game losing streak for the Flames, who play their next five games and six of the next seven at home.

It was the second straight two-goal performance for Huselius, whose first empty-netter with 81 seconds to go in the third period gave the Flames a 5-2 lead.

"We'll take it, it was a win and that's what counts," Huselius said. "We got a little sloppy and we thought it was over. They came back and worked hard. You have to give credit to them."

Craig Conroy and defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky scored 30 seconds apart in the final minute to draw the Kings within a goal with eight ticks to go, but Huselius sealed the win at 19:58.

"We spent too much time in our own zone," Calgary coach Jim Playfair said. "Give them credit, they made a great push."

"It was too late," Los Angeles captain Mattias Norstrom said of his team's comeback. "We can't wait. We let Calgary take it to us. We did play a lot better in the third, but we can't wait 40 minutes on the road against a good team like the Flames."

Captain Jarome Iginla had a goal and three assists and Alex Tanguay and Daymond Langkow each scored a tally and set up another for Calgary.

"The last couple of minutes, the puck was bouncing weird," said Iginla, who has three goals and nine assists in his last seven games. "You know, we won the game. For two periods, we were very good, and in the third, LA was very good.

"We found a way to win. We don't want to play like this all the time, but the bottom line is, we did enough to win. I have never seen a game-winning empty-net goal."

Visnovsky had two goals and an assist and Alexander Frolov netted a tally and assisted on two others for the Kings, who have lost five of seven.

Miikka Kiprusoff, who surrendered a season-high six goals in a 6-5 overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday, made 32 saves in snapping a personal four-game losing streak.

Defenseman Dion Phaneuf scored the other goal for Calgary, which went 2-for-8 on the power play.

Barry Brust finished with 24 saves for the Kings, who were 1-for-5 with the extra skater.

"It was pretty tight for a while, we battled hard in the third," Brust said. "We just came to play and we just kicked ourselves in the butt between periods and decided to make it happen."