What an expensive win...

...over such an undeserving team. As of now Dion Phaneuf and Robyn Regehr are injured. Brutal. A lot of other close calls too. Is Columbus one of the dirtiest teams in the league now? They sure look like contenders after all that crap tonight. My hatred for Mick (not Michael, damnit, Mick) MaGoooooo reaches new levels each night.

Which brings me to a completely unrelated tangent: How awful would a Roger Millions/Ray Ferraro tandem be for calling a game? Oh, shoot me now.

Overall the game was decent. Not good. Not bad. Good in parts, bad in parts -- more good parts than bad. Conklin is my hero, of course, and he won that game for us. When the game was clearly in the bag I was a bit of a fruit, 'cause I started feeling sorry for that goalie (what was his name, Papperle?) playing in his first NHL game playing behind an awful team killing constant penalties. But I gotta say, he played way better than Conklin ever has.

Conroy seemed to go invisible after the first 5 minutes of the game, with the exception of solid penalty killing. I continue to be uneasy about demoting Langkow, and slightly uneasy about demoting Lombardi for Conroy, though. While I love Conroy, Langkow and Lombardi are both having career seasons and things were working with them...so why are we toying with that? I can understand if our offense was as awful of Edmonton or Vancouver, but we're scoring goals in bunches so why screw with our mojo?

Maybe Playfair knows more than I do, but I'm more willing to bet I'm just smarter than that guy just 'cause I know not to wear those damn shirt/tie combos. He makes so many bizarre decisions so often. But who am I to complain so long as we win...and that's what counts, the mark "in the win column!!" The two points. Lots of hard work by my boys out there tonight.

Tomorrow though, that'll be a challenge. The Flames will be completely tired from this game and Vancouver seems to have our number recently. But I've got confidence. I'll make a prophetic prediction for fun, we'll see how awful I am: 3-1 Flames (Iginla, Lombardi, Huselius; Sedin).

[PS: Why did Kipper play this game?]

Edit: Addendum: Training staff says Phaneuf is a "lower body" injury, and Regehr and Phaneuf should "both be okay"...