DETROIT -- The Calgary Flames proved they could keep up with the Red Wings at The Joe.
For 50 minutes, at least.
Then their legs got wobbly, the grind of seven days on the road and four games in six nights catching up with them.
With two goals in the last 10 minutes of regulation and a third straight in overtime, the Red Wings came away with a 4-3 overtime victory last night.
The Flames, though, came away with an important point to finish a difficult trip 2-1-1.
Craig Conroy and Daymond Langkow scored in the first period to stun the home crowd.
The Wings crept back into contention with the only goal of the second period, from Valtteri Filppula.
David Moss scored his sixth goal in eight games to restore the two-goal lead. Things started to fall apart a minute later when Henrik Zetterberg jumped on a rebound and sparked the comeback.
"It's too bad, because we played a pretty decent game," said Curtis Glencross, who had plenty of energy in the early going despite the team's late arrival in Detroit after playing the night before in Montreal.
They got to their hotel just before 4 a.m., but no one would use that as an excuse.
In fact, they were pretty impressed at the opportunities they created for themselves. Scoring has been tough for them at The Joe in the past.
"We were getting lots of scoring chances. We were talking after the game. Guys were saying that in the past they were lucky to get four or five chances a game here," added Glencross.
"Tonight, who knows how many we had?"
Even head coach Mike Keenan could see the positives at the tail end of a gruelling trip.
"We had a good start. A lot of energy to start the game with. I thought we had pretty good tempo to our game considering the amount of games we played and the number of time zones we had to go through," he said.
"We've had three really late nights on this trip -- two, three and four o'clock a.m.
"We came away with some pretty good results for a very challenging, demanding road trip."
