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So after a season-low effort against Phoenix the Flames come out with… their second worst game of the year. If it wasn’t for Joey MacDonald, this game would have been way worse. Iginla had a pretty solid game too (8 shots, 1 assist) but other than those two, this team absolutely sucked.

TSN reports that in order to make the playoffs, the Flames have to go 22-11 for the rest of the season. Eleven games over 500? There is no way, this team is not good enough to go on a run like that. And according to SportsClubStats.com, the Flames have a 11% chance of making the playoffs this year.

Wow did that game ever suck.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a more boring game than that one, not this year for sure. I found myself fast forwarding through the second period, mainly to keep myself from falling asleep. The best part of this game was Danny Taylor playing a solid two periods, but then he kind of fell apart in the third. Calgary just didn’t have any chances or energy, it was really a sad effort all ’round.

The loss means Calgary is 4 points back of the final playoff spot. So by my count they need to rattle off four games in a row to see some headway. They are also 3 points out of last, so lose a couple and you’re once again in the basement.

In other news, Mark Giordano has been fined $10,000, the maximum allowed under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for slew-footing Dallas Stars forward Antoine Roussel in Dallas on Sunday. As a first-time offender, the maximum Giordano could be fined was the lesser of $10,000 or one-half of his daily salary.

So wait… his daily salary is more than $20,000? Cripes. You’d think he’d be playing better hockey for that kind of dough.

Storylines (to help at the water cooler):

• Mike Cammalleri comes back into the linup after missing three goals and quickly makes up for his lack of goals this year with a hat trick. The last was Cammy’s 200 career goal.
• Leland Irving starts his fourth straight. After looking pretty solid in the three previous games yet rewarded with a 1-1-1 record, plays average and comes away with a win.
• Seven goals is the most that Calgary has scored in years. This year they hadn’t scored more than five, and six held up as the highests since January 2012.
• The Flames are now 500, 2 points back of Edmonton and 4 points out of eighth. With two games in hand.

I think that the only surprising part of this game was that the Flames scored first, and were leading after one. I think thing there was a moment during this game that either team, or anyone watching, thought Calgary was going to pull this off. Let’s face it, with Irving in net (although with a save percentage of .879 he has got better stats than Kipper),  no Cammy (who has zero goals this year), no Sven Baertschi (no points this year), and no Mikael Backlund (who’s 4 points in 8 games is the most impressive stat of the four on IR), this is a team who will be hard-pressed not to finish in last place.

But you know what? If you’re going to suck and get the first pick overall, you might as well do it in a shortened lockout season! Maybe that has been Feaster’s plan this whole time?

Not to belabor the point, but out of the 41 goalies in the NHL (with at least four games played), Kipper is rated 39th in save percentage. Ouch.

Finally a game-well-played pays off. Or maybe that’s just well-enough played. After heartbreaking losses to both Colorado and Chicago, the Flames got their act together with goals by Iginla and Glencross, Dennis Wideman had a goal and an assist, Mark Giordano scored, Mike Cammalleri had two assists, and we got solid goaltending from Kiprusoff — for two periods.

Miikka Kiprusoff is going to be re-evaluated today (Wednesday). What is positive is that it didn’t look serious as he didn’t even leave the ice and he was able to finish the period before sitting the final frame. It’s been called a lower-body injury and that’s all we know for know.

What a great game that was. I mean, it sucks that we lost… but if you play like that for 65 minutes you’re not going to lose many games. This was by far and away the best game that the Flames have played in a long, long time. Like years… they had 47 shots! Calgary’s second line had 20 shots, outshooting the entire Chicago roster (who had 19 shots total).

Does anyone remember 47 shots by the Flames? That was the most saves Ray Emery has ever made. Calgary outshot Chicago 24-6 in the third period. The Flames were dominant and looked like they had the game in hand when they took the lead with 35 seconds left in the game. However, the Blackhawks tied the game with three seconds left and Emery sitting on the bench.

Unfortunately there were only two things that would cause them to lose. One, Kiprusoff lets in a bad goal or gets a bad bounce, the former has happened a lot in this young season. Or two, it goes to a shootout. The Hawks were just hanging on for the last 25 minutes of this game knowing that the minute overtime ended – even though they were getting torn apart on the ice – they would regain momentum in a second, and become favoured to win.

Here is what Chicago coach Joel Quenneville had to say: “They’ve got to call the cops after that performance. (Emery) stole two points. He was spectacular. I’ve never ever been outplayed, outchanced like that in my life. That was a special performance and it continued on in the shootout.”

And this is the reason I can’t stand the shootout. It makes whatever happened in the game moot, and the outcome is dependent on 8 guys rather than 50.