TORONTO

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Photograph by : Claus Andersen

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If you didn't know better, you'd swear the Calgary Flames were trying to throw a hockey game Saturday night.

Goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff wouldn't co-operate, however, so they were forced to take a 5-2 win over the homestanding Toronto Maple Leafs in spite of themselves to finish their three-game National Hockey League road trip in anything but glowing style.

The victory made it a highly successful junket, nabbing five of a possible six points, and snapped a nine-year string of losses in the centre of the hockey universe. But it was anything but pretty.

After scoring on their first two shots of the game inside two minutes, the Flames went into some kind of crazy funk that saw them stuck in mud and giving away the puck like candy at Halloween.

The Leafs swooped like hornets and unloaded 20 of their game-total 40 shots in the second period. They easily could have turned a 3-1 deficit into a three- or four-goal lead, but for the heroics of Kipper, who stopped all but one in that second period assault.

"I don't want to be negative because we had five out of six points, so it's a very good road trip from that standpoint," said coach Brent Sutter, "but I wasn't happy the way we played the first period (Friday at Buffalo) and I certainly wasn't pleased with the way we played the first two periods here tonight.

"Our goaltender played great . . . you can't keep relying on one guy to do that for you. It's going to burn you and that's why I'm putting up the flags as we speak."

Jarome Iginla scored twice while Dustin Boyd and Eric Nystrom each added a goal and an assist and Jay Bouwmeester popped one on a power-play as the Flames finished this trip at 2-0-1.

Francoise Beauchemin and Matt Stajan replied for the Leafs.

"I think you could say we dominated much of the game, but there was too much Iginla and too much Kiprusoff," submitted Toronto coach Ron Wilson. "It's frustrating to generate that much offence and only score two goals."

The Flames looked and played like they were dead after the third goal. They were out-hustled, out-muscled, out-battled, out-skated, out-worked, out-everythinged. Whatever message Sutter had delivered didn't sink in until the third period when they regrouped significantly.

How everything could fall apart so quickly was a mystery considering the Flames were easily the best bunch on the ice for the first 10 minutes when they scored three times on five shots to chase Toronto starting goalie Jonas Gustavsson. It was the 15th time in 18 games they had scored first.

"We got kind of complacent. running around, losing battles," sighed Boyd, who had a strong game. "We showed flashes of a good team system, but for the most part it wasn't the way we wanted to play. Sure, we're happy with the two points, but we need to buckle down. It showed tonight, giving up too many shots, too many quality scoring opportunites.

''You gotta give credit to Kip, he kepts us in the game. It could have been a different story."

But because of a hot goalie and a sound third period, it wasn't.

THIS AND THAT: Toronto honoured its (Notre) Hound Line of Gary Leeman, Russ Courtnall and Wendel Clark during its 1980s Night promotion. Best zinger came from Clark when he was asked to give his advice on growing a moustache. "Milk under 19, beer over 19," he quickly responded.