Flames turn up heat on Tampa

CALGARY, Alberta -- There were two questions facing the Calgary Flames going into last night's Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning. No. 1, would they be able to play better at the Saddledome than they had in previous series, during which they were a mediocre 4-5? No. 2, would their woeful power play ever get going?

The answers were yes to both. The Flames scored a pair of goals 3 minutes 16 seconds apart in the second period -- the first coming on the man advantage -- on their way to a 3-0 victory. They lead the best-of-seven series, two games to one.

Forwards Chris Simon and Shean Donovan each scored their fifth goals of the postseason, captain Jarome Iginla potted his league-leading 12th, and goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff stopped 21 shots to record his fifth shutout and give the Flames their fifth home win of the playoffs.

As they had in Game 1, the Flames were effective in handcuffing the Lightning's skilled forwards, limiting them to few scoring chances.

"It was a good game for us," said Iginla. "The first period we had only two shots, but at the same time they had five, but we got back to playing our style of game. I think every single guy was ready physically and even though we only had a couple of scoring chances, we had a good period that set the tone for the game."

Despite five power plays in the first 20 minutes, the clubs generated little offense. Instead of offense, the teams spent the period pounding the tar out of each other. Even though Calgary coach Darryl Sutter elected to dress Krzysztof Oliwa for this one, it wasn't a battle of enforcers that had everybody talking, but rather a bout between two star players. With 6:17 gone in the period, Iginla and Lightning center Vincent Lecavalier went from jawing at each other, to bumping each other, to dropping their gloves. Both got five minutes for fighting and Lightning coach John Tortorella reacted by applauding Lecavalier as he headed to the penalty box.

The much-maligned Calgary power play came through in the second period, giving the Flames the only offense they would need. Brad Lukowich got whistled off for slashing Donovan at 13:03, giving the Flames the man advantage for the third time. Initially, it looked as if the situation was going to benefit the Lightning when Brad Richards took a long lead pass from Dave Andreychuk. Richards tried to beat Kiprusoff from the right circle to the far side but the goalie was there for the stop.

Shortly thereafter, the Flames got on the board. Tampa Bay defenseman Darryl Sydor fell down at the Lightning blue line and Iginla muscled the puck around him and into the zone. He dished it to Simon, who got three cracks at a goal. Simon finally beat Nikolai Khabibulin from just outside the right post at 13:53.

A little more than three minutes later, the Flames struck again, this time on a two-on-one rush. Donovan, one of the fastest skaters on either team, skated the puck into the left side of the Tampa zone with Chuck Kobasew on his right. The Lightning defender took away the passing lane, so Donovan drilled a shot from the left circle that beat Khabibulin over the glove to make it 2-0 at 17:09.

Iginla closed out the scoring with the Flames' second power-play goal, with 1:32 remaining.

Simon said as solid as the Flames played, there's room for improvement, and they expect the Lightning to be ready, too, for Game 4 tomorrow.

"They have got a lot of skill on that side and especially those top two lines," he said. "If you give them time and space, they can thread the needle through anybody, and we tried to take away time and space tonight.

"But I still think that there's a lot of things that we can do better as a group and we'll talk about that and get ready for the next game."