Now that had all the elements of the '05/'06 Flames' home games that we've come to know and love.

• Lots of speed
• Very few good scoring chances on Kipper
• Solid saves on most of those occasions
• Long, boring stretches through the middle with the lead
• A very red crowd, and most importantly,
• Never any real chance that the Flames were going to lose

I'm not going to belabour this very long, as he could always come back in Game 6 with a hat-trick or some damn thing, but I hope everyone has now clued in to which Huge Contract Superstar is dominating this series. For some reason after Game 4, watchers even in Calgary persisted in their comments that Scott Niedermayer was "controlling the game from back there", despite plenty of visual evidence to the contrary and a difference of six between his and Iginla's +/- rating.

Last night Jarome chalked up another 2G, +1 while Niedermatador went -1; the numbers alone may not have changed anyone's perspective, but Nied getting pylonned by Iginla in front of the net for a 3-0 score just may have.

If I could pick one defenseman in the league to retrieve a puck in my own end, under pressure, and get it out safely, I might well pick Niedermayer. The number of times he's confounded Flames forecheckers with a quick, accurate pass in an unexpected direction is pretty impressive. And, the offensive element to his game is clearly a big plus. But if I'm picking a defenseman to neutralize the other team's top line or top scorer, he's a long way down the list. There's four Flames D-men who have been doing it more impressively than him, this series.

Speaking of Selanne, how can anyone not be impressed with this guy? I admit it, I thought his career was dead. When Kariya and Selanne moved to the Avalanche before the '03/'04 season (prompting a few people to concede the Stanley Cup right there), I predicted correctly that they'd be ineffective. Usually when a guy like Selanne loses that step, it's gone forever, and furthermore, they can't usually adjust their game to compensate. But somehow he's fast again, and he's still opportunistic, and he might be tougher than he's ever been (leading to the outwardly absurd Kelly Hrudey statement that Regehr may have elbowed Selanne's head into the glass in self-defense).

Now that the game is over, I'm glad the Ducks came back to make the score close. I think that sometimes players have the same problem as fans and media; as a game recedes into the past and memories cloud, they confuse margin of victory with ease of victory. I'd much rather head into a tough road game coming off of a one-goal win than a three-goal win, because I think there's a much better chance that the players will be in the needed mindset.

Postscript: Odds are back at 40.8%. One more win each by the Flames, Oilers, and Avalanche, and we have ourselves a Round 2 Battle of Alberta (a.k.a. the Smythe Division Finals).