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Huselius, Tanguay star as Flames edge Blues

Mar 13, 2007 - 5:58 AM CALGARY, Alberta (Ticker) -- After a career performance in regulation by Kristian Huselius, Alex Tanguay emerged as the hero for the Calgary Flames in the shootout.

Huselius recorded a career-best four points and Tanguay scored the deciding goal in the shootout as the Flames squandered a two-goal lead in the third period but escaped with a 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Blues.

Huselius registered a power-play goal and an assist in the second period and set up tallies by defenseman Dion Phaneuf and Daymond Langkow early in the third to complete his huge night and give the Flames a 4-2 lead.

"I play with good players," Huselius said. "I just try to work hard and create chances."

But Petr Cajanek and Lee Stempniak scored three minutes apart midway through the session to forge a tie and earn a well-deserved point.

After a scoreless overtime, St. Louis goaltender Jason Bacashihua and counterpart Miikka Kiprusoff each stopped the first shooter they faced in the bonus format. However, on the Flames' second attempt, Tanguay beat Bacashihua high to the glove side with a wrist shot to put Calgary ahead.

"It's one of those plays where you come in and the first option is always to shoot," Tanguay said. "He's a smaller goalie. He's kind of standing low, so I was just trying to get it over his shoulder. Fortunately for us, it went in."

Kiprusoff used the butterfly technique to make a right pad save on Doug Weight on the Blues' next chance, and captain Jarome Iginla sealed the win, firing a hard wrister past Bacashihua.

"It's probably not the prettiest (win)," Iginla said. "You're up two goals, you want to finish it. But right now, it's a huge two points."

Rookie David Moss scored his ninth goal and defenseman Roman Hamrlik added two assists for Calgary (37-22-10), which climbed within one point of San Jose (41-25-3), Dallas (40-23-5) and Minnesota (39-24-7) for fifth place in the Western Conference.

"We lost a lot of points earlier in the season on shootouts," Tanguay said. "It's important to get those points, especially in our situation right now. We're 10 points ahead of Colorado (for eighth place). That's big for us."

"Obviously, we had to get the win," Huselius added. "It was huge for us, the two points."

The Flames swept the four-game season series with the Blues and are 9-0-1 in the last 10 meetings between the teams. But coach Jim Playfair was not pleased with his team's effort Monday.

"I'm not going to stand here and criticize a win, but I'll certainly stand here and let you know that our team can and must play a lot better, a lot more consistent and we have to be harder to play against, and we'll do that," he said.

Stempniak recorded his second two-goal effort of the campaign and Brad Boyes collected three assists for St. Louis, which has lost four of its last five games.

"It was disappointing to lose," Blues captain Dallas Drake said. "We should never put ourselves in that position, being down two goals and having to battle back. For the most part, we were doing a lot of good things. We played with a lot of character coming back."

Bacashihua made 30 saves, including 13 in the second period, when the Blues were outshot, 15-6.

"He made some big saves," St. Louis coach Andy Murray said. "He's a real good puckhandling goaltender. We were in a position to get two points tonight and got one. He was our goalie, so he's part of the equation."

The Blues took a 1-0 lead with 2:05 remaining in the first period, when defenseman Christian Backman fired a wrist shot from the slot that glanced off Kiprusoff's glove and into the net following a turnover.

Calgary surged ahead in the second as Moss scored at 2:28 and Huselius banked a rebound off Bacashihua from the left side of the net with 5:59 remaining. But St. Louis pulled even with 29 seconds to go in the session as Stempniak beat Kiprusoff with a wrister from the right hash marks for his 22nd of the campaign.

Phaneuf converted a cross-slot pass from Huselius at 3:16 of the third and Langkow netted his 28th at 6:44 to give the Flames a 4-2 bulge. However, Cajanek scored from the top of the crease with Kiprusoff well out of the play 22 seconds later and Stempniak completed his fourth career two-goal performance midway through the session to draw the Blues even.

"We're a very confident group," said Weight, who assisted on Cajanek's goal. "We believe we're playing for each other. When we get down, we feel like we can always come back."

Skating down the right wing, Stempniak got ahead of a defender before receiving a pass from rookie David Backes, deked and slid the puck by Kiprusoff for the equalizer.

St. Louis had an opportunity to win in overtime as Calgary's Matthew Lombardi was called for slashing at 3:28. But Kiprusoff turned aside all three shots he faced during the power play, forcing the shootout.

"(We) certainly had our chances in overtime to win," Murray said. "On the power play, we had a couple of real good looks at it."

"It's pretty tough when you take penalties in overtime," Kiprusoff said.