Flames Not Ready to Let Cup Slip Away : NHL playoffs: Defending champion Calgary quietly regroups and forces Game 6.

Embarrassed by the Kings two nights earlier and chastised by the local media for two days, the Calgary Flames reacted not with anger Thursday night, but with quiet desperation.

“We were all afraid of what might happen,” center Joe Nieuwendyk told reporters after contributing a goal and three assists as the Flames beat the Kings, 5-1, before 20,166 at the Olympic Saddledome in Game 5 of their best-of-seven Smythe Division semifinal playoff series.

So afraid that nary a word was spoken among them beforehand. Down 3-1 in the series, the defending champion Flames saw their Stanley Cup slipping away.

“The guys were quiet,” Nieuwendyk said. “We were all sitting around, not saying anything, but just concentrating on what we had to do. We’ve taken some abuse the last couple of days, but we showed a lot of composure.”

The Flames responded to the media heat by applying pressure of their own on the Kings, who were overwhelmed for the first time in a series that many expected the Flames to dominate. Limited to nine shots on goal in the first two periods, the Kings fell behind, 3-0.

Then, after finally scoring at 1:48 of the third period, the Kings surrendered a pair of goals in the next eight minutes.

“They are desperate,” Coach Terry Crisp said of the Flames. “That’s why they played like a desperate team.”

The Flames arrived from Los Angeles Wednesday to find that the local media had not reacted kindly to their 12-4 loss Tuesday night at the Forum.

“Send this shell of a team to Moscow and make it stay,” wrote columnist Alan Maki of the Calgary Herald. “Send it in a row boat with a slow leak. Put it in an airplane--third class or baggage?--with only one movie to watch, Tuesday’s disgrace against Los Angeles.”

Maki also called for Crisp’s ouster, saying that the third-year coach “should be given a root canal without Novocain.”

On Thursday, the rips continued.

“Are these sleeping beauties going to bother showing up at the Olympic Saddledome tonight?” wrote columnist Larry Wood, also of the Herald. “If it’s really true that this disgraceful exercise is aimed at unloading His Crispness as coach, they should do us all a favor and stay home. It would be even more unprofessional to continue going through the motions. . . .

“If these Flames get any worse than they have been lately, there should be an asterisk placed beside their Stanley Cup victory of last season. Theirs, over four games, has been history’s shabbiest, most undisciplined, careless and embarrassing defense of the game’s Holy Grail.”

And Maki again asked Flame management to unload Crisp.

Of Crisp’s role in Game 4, Maki wrote: “He stood back and did nothing as the Flames panicked, took penalties and collapsed like a gutted building.”

On the verge of elimination, the Flames flickered again.

“We felt embarrassment more than pressure,” Crisp said. “The guys were quiet after the last game, and they’ve been quiet ever since.”

But they weren’t beaten.

“Our first series of shifts showed that we were really into it,” Nieuwendyk said. “Everybody was pumping, everybody was going hard.”

The lopsided loss in Game 4 hadn’t mortified them.

“What do you want me to say, that I went home and kicked the cat?” said defenseman Ric Nattress, who scored a pair of goals in Game 5. “It wasn’t so much being mad. It was just disappointing to be so undisciplined. We were totally upset with ourselves.”

The media criticism hadn’t affected them, they claimed.

“I think most of us put that right out of our mind,” said Dana Murzyn. “We’re not winning for the media. We’re not winning for anybody but ourselves. So, I don’t think anybody was angry about what was written.”

But they were concerned that their season might end.

“I don’t think anybody wants a good season like this to end so early in April,” Nieuwendyk said.

Of course, it still could end as early as Saturday night at the Forum, where the Kings could wrap up the series with a victory.