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Saturday, Nov. 18 10:00pm ET
Fleury scores 15th goal, gets ejected | |||||
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CALGARY, Alberta (AP) -- Theo Fleury enjoyed the night, even the boos and jeers from the Calgary Flames fans. Valeri Kamensky scored at 2:16 of overtime and Fleury recorded his league-leading 15th goal as the New York Rangers beat the Flames 5-4 Saturday night. Kamensky took a drop pass from Mark Messier and fired a shot from just inside the blue line that went in off the goal post. The Rangers won in Calgary for the first time since Jan. 14, 1987. New York was 0-9-4 since. It capped a bizarre night in which Fleury, the former Flame playing his first game in Calgary with the Rangers, was the focus and nearly went from hero to goat. Fleury, booed throughout the game by many of the same fans who adored him during his 11 seasons with Calgary, drew the ire of the sellout crowd of 17,139 when he took a needless roughing penalty and misconduct with six seconds left in the third period. Fleury had to be restrained by linesmen as he was ushered off the ice. "I expected that kind of reaction from the crowd from the last time I was here," said Fleury, the Flames' career leading scorer, who also made a visit in April 1998 after being traded to the Colorado Avalanche. "It was just a lot of fun to be out there tonight." In 19 games, Fleury has equaled his goal total in 80 games last season. Calgary failed to score on the power play and Kamensky's winner came less than a minute after Fleury's minor expired. The Flames were 2-for-10 on the power play; the Rangers 1-for-3. "That was a huge game tonight for the simple fact that we needed the two points," Rangers coach Ron Low said. "Tonight we battled through a bunch of penalties and ended up winning the hockey game. It was a great win for our team." Also scoring for New York were Brian Leetch, Petr Nedved, and Messier. Leetch added two assists to break the Rangers career record. Leetch, who has 617 career assists, snapped a tie with Rod Gilbert. Marc Savard, Jason Wiemer, Jeff Shantz, and Robyn Regehr scored for the Flames, winless in a club-record seven straight games at home (0-5-2). "I was really proud of the way we played tonight," Flames coach Don Hay said. "I thought we really battled hard and really dug in. To respond like that after the last game (a 5-2 home loss to Chicago) showed a lot of character." The Rangers led 3-2 heading into the third period, but the teams combined for three goals in 83 seconds and were tied 4-4. Shantz evened it 3-3 at 2:36 before Messier converted a beautiful setup from Kim Johnsson at 3:38 to regain New York's one goal lead. That advantage lasted 21 seconds when Regehr tied it again with his first goal of the season, a seemingly harmless wrist shot from the blue line that goalie Mike Richter didn't see. Fleury seemed to feed off the crowd's attention and put the Rangers ahead 3-1 in the second with his fifth short-handed goal -- tying a club record -- at 5:18. Fleury stripped the puck from defenseman Phil Housley at the Flames blue line and raced in alone on goalie Fred Brathwaite. He beat him with a deke to his forehand. Don Maloney (1980-81), Marc Rogers (1982-83), Mike Gartner (1993-94) and Messier (1996-97) also had five short-handed goals in a season for the Rangers. Trailing 2-0 after the first period, Calgary closed the gap to 3-2 in the second, a period in which the Flames received six consecutive power plays and outshot the Rangers 12-3. "Unbelievable, I don't know if I've seen that many penalties in two games in a row," Low said. "That's pretty scary, but the good thing about it, Mess had lots left in the third not killing penalties. "They had lots of jump and their line was the difference in the third period." Calgary got on the scoreboard on a strange goal at 1:42, if it was a goal. Marc Savard's rising slap shot from the blue line hit the water bottle on top of the Rangers net and play carried on. The play was reviewed and despite TV angles that appeared to show the puck going over the net and nicking the bottle, the replay official said it went through the top of the net and called it a goal. After the Rangers regained their two-goal lead, Wiemer banged in another power-play goal at 17:02 to narrow the gap to 3-2. Game notesThe Flames are 0-7-1 when they trail after one period and 0-8-2 when they yield the game's first goal. ... Defenseman Igor Kravchuk (+3) and rookie left-wing Oleg Saprykin (+1) entered the game as the only Flames above zero in plus-minus. | ALSO SEE NHL Scoreboard NY Rangers Clubhouse Calgary Clubhouse RECAPS New Jersey 3 Carolina 2
NY Rangers 5
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