CAPTAIN MARVEL

The topic under discussion the other day with the most influential defenceman ever to haul a Flaming C over his head was the current era's undisputed standard-bearer.
"Having a great season, has had a great career," lauded Al MacInnis of Mark Giordano. "He's the guy that leads the charge every night, impacts the game in all areas.
"Such a complete defenceman. You can't find any holes. Offensively, defensively, minutes played, leadership … he's doing it all for the Flames right now.
"It'd be hard to ask anything more from a player.
"Obviously a strong, strong candidate to win the Norris this year."

Yes, you can count the Hall-of-Famer as an unabashed Gio fan.
"That's pretty cool coming from one of the greatest defencemen ever to play the game," said Giordano.
Well, each and every superlative is richly warranted.
Sunday night, the captain scored a couple of goals, the second a searing a la MacInnis slapshot, as the Flames smothered the Arizona Coyotes 7-1 at the Scotiabank Saddledome to run their win string to five.

"Well, I don't know if it was that hard,'' laughed Giordano of the howitzer. "A rolling puck. And I figured might as well try it. There was a lot of traffic in front.
"Those rollers are hard for goalies to pick up.
"I hit that one pretty clean."
Marking his 800th regular-season career game in style - thus drawing to within three of MacInnis and third spot in franchise history - Giordano counted his eighth and ninth goals of the year, added an assist and upped his NHL chart-topping plus-minus total (now +36) with an eye-popping plus-five rating.
In tacking those three points onto his career total, he also moved into the Top-10 in Flames' all-time scoring at 425, passing Jim Peplinski.
"I'm more happy about being here for as long as I have and being able to play in this city as long as I have," Giordano said of the points milestone. "With the salary cap and all the player movement, it's hard to play in one city. I appreciate playing here.
"Hopefully I can play here a number of years and end my career here."
As well, he also shot into second place among league D-men in scoring, pushing by Toronto's Morgan Reilly, now at 47 in 45 games played.

"I think getting a lot of touches on the first powerplay unit with those guys is really helping," Giordano reasoned of his impressive offensive numbers. "Me and Brodes have good chemistry together and we always have, to be honest.
"Feels good playing with him. We're jumping into spots and we're having success."
Not that No. 5 was a one-man band Sunday, by any means.
Johnny Gaudreau counted points 68 and 69 - a goal and a helper - to leapfrog into second in the Art Ross Trophy race, putting Tampa pacesetter Nikita Kucherov officially on alert.
Gaudreau, as pitiless as a piranha, saucered a lovely little side-of-the net pass out for Sean Monahan to swat underneath goalie Adin Hill's left pad and then was Johnny-on-the-spot to slap home his 27th of the campaign.
Toss in two more goals from Matthew Tkachuk - Nos. 22 and 23 - and the rout was well and truly on.
"I thought we were good in the first," says Giordano. "Other than the kill, they didn't have many looks 5-on-5. The second we didn't play our best period. We stopped moving our feet a little bit. But then in the third we were really good."
At 35, this is the most fun Giordano's enjoyed during his Flames/NHL career.
"Yeah, I'd say so. When you're winning, you know how it is. The mood is great. The city's great. Everyone around town.
"It's a good feeling.
"I like the way we've won games. We've won blowouts and we've won tight ones.
"Personally, there's ups and down in your career and then, too, as a team. We went some years we weren't getting in but hopefully this year we can get into the playoffs and play well in the playoffs, go deep into the playoffs.
"That's the ultimate goal. We feel we have a great team.
"This year's been great so far.
"We're trending in the right direction but we still have a lot of work to do."