Flames douse Suhonen's goal; Blackhawks tumble into 12th place.(Chicago Tribune)

CALGARY, Alberta_The Calgary Flames have just a flicker of hope of making the playoffs. Thursday night, though, they just about snuffed out the Blackhawks' postseason aspirations.

With the 5-3 loss, the Hawks have a 21-25-4-2 record and missed coach Alpo Suhonen's goal_reaching .500 by the four-day All-Star break that begins Friday.

Steve Sullivan scored his 23rd goal and picked up his 26th assist but it wasn't enough to keep the Hawks from losing another one. Their penalty-killers had an unexpected lapse during a 4-minute 32-second span in the opening period, and the Flames parlayed power-play goals by Jarome Iginla and Valeri Bure into a 5-3 victory.

"I don't know what happened in the middle of the first period," said Hawks coach Alpo Suhonen in the wake of his team's fifth defeat in the last six games. "We totally stopped playing.

"Penalty-killing has been very good this year. In the first period it was terrible, probably the worst in the whole year."

The Hawks dropped from 11th to 12th in the Western Conference and stand 11 points behind Edmonton, which currently has ...