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Wednesday, Dec. 29 9:00pm ET
Giguere makes most of chance to start | |||||
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BOX SCORE
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) -- Jean-Sebastien Giguere became the latest Calgary Flames goalie to shine. Giguere made 32 saves in his season debut Wednesday night and Jarome Iginla added a goal and an assist to lead the Calgary Flames to a 3-1 victory over the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Giguere was especially sharp in the third period as Anaheim outshot Calgary 15-5 but couldn't score the tying goal. "In my situation where I'm not playing a lot, when I do get out there I have to play my best," said Giguere, who had seven career wins coming into this season. "One of the key reasons for our success right now is that the guys are letting the goalies see the puck all the time and they're clearing all the rebounds away." Fred Brathwaite, last week's NHL player of the week, started 18 of the Flames previous 20 games but was coming off a rough third period against Philadelphia on Monday when he gave up four goals in less than five minutes. "There were four bad goals that game so tonight was a coach's decision," said Brian Sutter explaining his decision to go with Giguere over Brathwaite. "I'm not going to let players slide." Iginla's seventh goal of the season and first in 11 games came at 15:29 of the second period and broke a 1-1 tie. Guy Hebert stopped Marc Savard's initial slap shot but the long rebound into the slot was collected by Iginla who paused briefly before firing a wrist shot just inside the goal post. "I was just going to pound it at the net and hope for the best, but it seems like I've been doing that too much lately," Iginla said. "This one was the perfect rebound and it was me and the goalie so I wanted to take my time and give myself the best shot." Clarke Wilm completed the scoring with a short-handed goal into an empty net with just 1.6 seconds left. Jeff Shantz also scored for Calgary. The Flames are 6-2-2 in their last 10 games. Ted Donato scored the lone goal for the Mighty Ducks, losers of three of four. In what's been a familiar script for Anaheim all season, the Mighty Ducks' inability to capitalize on the power-play cost them. Calgary went 2-for-5 on the power play while Anaheim was 0-for-6. The Mighty Ducks entered the game ranked 23rd on the power play and last on the road where they are now a dismal 3-for-61 on the season. "Five-on-five we haven't had any problems all season but our special teams just haven't been there at all," Anaheim right-wing Teemu Selanne said. "It's frustrating because last year our power play was best in the league." After leading the NHL with a 22.0 efficiency a year ago, Anaheim's power play entered the game at 12.5 percent. "We knew tonight was going to be a low scoring game and special teams were going to be a big part of it, and sure enough, they scored two and we didn't score any." Hebert faced just 19 shots in his return to the lineup after missing two games with a sore neck. The Flames were outshot by Anaheim 11-1 during a 20-minute stretch early in the game. Anaheim tied the game 1-1 at 9:14 of the second when Paul Kariya threaded a cross-ice pass to Donato at the side of the Flames net for an easy one-timer. The win, before a crowd of 15,511 at the Canadian Airlines Saddledome, improves Calgary's record to 7-1-1 in their last nine home games.
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