Moss scores twice in Flames' 4-2 win

CALGARY, Alberta - It's a series now.

Not only did the Calgary Flames battle back into the Western Conference quarterfinal series with the Blackhawks by winning 4-2 on Monday night, the nastiness got dialed up during two brawls in the final minute that led to 64 minutes in penalties.

"It's the third game in a row against these guys and I think both sides are starting to dislike each other," Patrick Sharp said. "Tonight was the feistiest game we've had all series, and we expect it to get worse as we go along here.

"It's two teams that both want to win and don't like each other."

Ben Eager, Dave Bolland and Adam Burish all received 10-minute misconduct penalties, as did Calgary's Curtis Glencross and Rene Bourque.

After the game Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said he had "no idea" if any of his players might face suspensions for Game 4 on Wednesday.

The Hawks were frustrated by Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, who made 36 saves, many of them coming on 6 failed Hawks power plays (they were 1-for-7).

"We generated a few pucks on net, but we didn't come out with the third period we needed to," Sharp said. "We had a couple chances at key moments of the game and couldn't come through."

The Hawks still lead the best-of-seven series 2-1, with Game 4 back at the Saddledome on Wednesday night. Game 5 will be at the United Center on Saturday night.

The Hawks had a better start than in the first two games and took advantage of a foolish penalty by the Flames' Olli Jokinen to go ahead early.

Jokinen drew a roughing penalty 1:54 into the game for knocking down Niklas Hjalmarsson after a whistle, and the Hawks cashed in with a power-play goal from Sharp at 2:03.

The Hawks nearly made it 2-0 moments later, but Kiprusoff made a nice sliding save on Andrew Ladd.

"We had some really good chances to make it 2-zip," Quenneville said.

Calgary tied it at 6:40 with Eric Nystrom took a pass from Glencross and beat Nikolai Khabibulin with a shot under the crossbar from inside the right circle.

The Flames got the only goal of the second period, and it was a killer as Bourque banked one in off Khabibulin from behind the goal line.

"The key goal obviously was the second one," Quenneville said. "I thought it was even until then, but that gets everybody into it."

The third period started badly for the Hawks with David Moss scoring 2 goals a little more than four minutes apart to put the game out of reach.

"There were a lot of mistakes defensively," Jonathan Toews said. "Our backchecking wasn't good enough, and they're a team that likes to play on the rush."

The frustrations that boiled over at the end of the game had a lot to do with referees Chris Rooney and Brad Watson letting the Flames have free shots at the Hawks after nearly every whistle when Kiprusoff would make a save.

"We felt like we took a lot, especially in front of their net and after the whistle," Toews said. "We're going to stand up for each other. We took a lot of it tonight so that's the end of that, I think."

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