CALGARY, Alberta (AP) - Miikka Kiprusoff made 24 saves Tuesday night as the Calgary Flames won their fifth straight game, beating the St. Louis Blues 3-0.
Kiprusoff has won all five games and has played superb, looking like the goalie that won the Vezina Trophy last season as the NHL's top goaltender. Kiprusoff has a 1.00 goals-against average and a .965 save percentage during the streak.
It was Kiprusoff's third shutout of the season and 20th of his career.
The 30-year-old Finn's best save of the night came early in the second with the Flames leading 1-0. While down on the ice, Kiprusoff acrobatically swung out his pad to get his toe on a low shot off the stick of Blues leading goal scorer Bill Guerin.
Daymond Langkow, Kristian Huselius, and Andrew Ference scored for the Flames (8-7-2).
Calgary is enjoying its longest winning streak since winning eight in a row last November, a run that came after the team got off to a similarly slow start as this year.
St. Louis (5-9-3) lost for the fourth time in its last five games. The Blues began a five-game road trip, their longest of the season.
Kiprusoff got all the offense he would need 3 minutes into the game when the Flames executed a pretty three-way passing play. Jarome Iginla zipped a cross-ice pass to Alex Tanguay, who slid the puck back across the front of the net to Langkow for an easy tap-in into an open net.
The Flames thought they had struck again later when Langkow's pass across to Tanguay was one-timed on goal from nearly the same spot, but this time Sanford was able to make a brilliant save stabbing the puck with his glove.
Sanford strained a groin on the play, and after video review confirmed the puck did not cross the goal-line, he was replaced by Manny Legace.
The lead stayed at 1-0 until the second minute of the third period when Huselius struck short-handed.
Doug Weight lost the puck at the St. Louis blue-line, and Huselius gathered it in and streaked in alone, ripping a shot over the glove of Legace.
Ference rounded out the scoring with a power-play goal at 16:34 of the third.