CALGARY, Alberta — Quite a few folks at the Pengrowth Saddledome on Thursday had to work harder than Calgary Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff did.
Among them, the elevator operator pushing buttons and working a crossword puzzle.
Playing again without Peter Forsberg and a flu-ridden Paul Stastny, the Avalanche got only 16 shots on net and put little pressure on Kiprusoff outside of Ben Guite’s third-period goal.
In an ominously familiar pattern, Colorado went 0-for-4 on the power play.
It added up to a 2-1 Flames victory that extended Colorado’s losing streak to three games. Daymond Langkow and Craig Conroy had power-play goals for Calgary in the first period, and the Flames dominated puck possession most of the rest of the way.
“We didn’t generate a lot,” said Avalanche captain Joe Sakic, who was credited with two of the Avalanche shots. “They had those two power-play goals in the first period. We’ve got to get one to at least one . . . in that period.”
They didn’t.
“I think they played a pretty solid game, but I don’t think we did enough to help ourselves,” Sakic said. “We didn’t get on the forecheck well enough again to make those plays behind the net.”
Winger Ryan Smyth, who assisted on Guite’s grinding goal but hasn’t scored himself in the three games since he returned to the lineup, said the Avs “never capitalized on the advantages we had at the start. . . . Sometimes when you don’t capitalize, you can at least gain some momentum, and we didn’t even do that in the first period.”
It didn’t help that Stastny, who skated in the warm-up, was scratched.
“We gave him a couple of bags of ‘IV’ before the game to see how he would handle it,” Colorado coach Joel Quenneville said. “But he was unable to go.”
Jose Theodore had 26 saves and helped keep the Avalanche in it, and both the Flames’ goals came after Theodore made initial saves. On the first, it looked as if he had controlled Jarome Iginla’s shot after Iginla drove to the front from Theodore’s right, but the goalie couldn’t hang on. The second goal came after he made the save on Dion Phaneuf’s shot from the point.
“You look at the goal we scored,” Theodore said. “We drive the net, and jump on loose pucks, and that’s exactly how the three goals in this game were scored, two on me and one on ‘Kipper.
“When Iginla came out of the corner, I thought I had it, but it was loose. That’s how you have success, control rebounds or when there’s rebounds, clear the puck.”
Theodore added that the Avalanche has to “find a way to score the big goals. Obviously, on the road, when you allow as a team two goals each game, we did our job defensively. We just have to find a way to score that big goal to either take the lead or come back and make it 2-2.”
The only good news for the Avs came on the out-of-town scoreboard, where Nashville’s loss to Detroit meant Colorado, still eighth in the Western Conference, remained four points ahead of the Predators in the race for the final playoff spot.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
Avs Recap
Three stars
1. Dion Phaneuf.
Flames defenseman does major P.K. work and assists on the game-winning goal.
2. Matthew Lombardi.
Draws penalties that lead to two PP goals.
3. Daymond Langkow.
Puts the Flames ahead for good.
What you might have missed
Miikka Kiprusoff’s toughest save of the night was against David Jones from the slot in the second.
Up next
At Edmonton, Saturday, 1 p.m.
Terry Frei, The Denver Post
