THE CANADIAN PRESS

CALGARY -- Craig Conroy scored in the third period and Miikka Kiprusoff made 39 saves as the Calgary Flames climbed back into a tie for first place in the NHL's Northwest Division with a 1-0 victory Tuesday night over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Scoreless after 40 minutes, Conroy got the game's only goal at 5:49 of the third.

Eric Nystrom's shoot-in attempt glanced off the stick of Blue Jackets defenceman Aaron Rome and was scooped up by Conroy as he charged into the Columbus end. The veteran Flames centre cut to the net, and while fending off defenceman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, fired a backhand over the blocker of Pascal Leclaire.

Combined with Minnesota's 4-2 loss at home to Chicago, the Flames (35-23-9) find themselves level with the Wild atop the Northwest Division with 79 points each. Each team has 15 games remaining.

It was the second shutout of the season and 26th of his career for Kiprusoff, who improves to 33-20-9. The two blankings have come in his last five games.

Columbus (30-28-10) finishes up 1-1-1 on its three-game road trip to Western Canada. The Blue Jackets opened the night 11th in the West, four points back of a playoff spot.

Kiprusoff was returning to the net for Calgary after getting an unusually long five-period rest on the Flames two-game road trip. Calgary coach Mike Keenan replaced Kiprusoff with Curtis Joseph to the start of the second period of Friday night's 3-1 loss to Anaheim, after Kiprusoff yielded two goals on 11 shots.

Joseph remained in goal for the Flames 3-1 win in Phoenix on Saturday.

The Finnish goaltender was busiest in the opening period when Columbus outshot the home side 18-6. But halfway through the opening period, Kiprusoff showed his quickness getting across the net to thwart Nikolai Zherdev on a 2-on-1 with Jason Chimera.

The Blue Jackets had numerous chances with the extra man to take the lead over the first two periods but failed to get that critical goal finishing up 0-for-5. Columbus has gone eight games without a power-play goal, going 0-for-26 over that span.

Columbus' best chance on the man advantage came in the second period with a two-man advantage for 1:19. However, despite passing the puck around the perimeter with ease, they were unable to generate a dangerous chance, getting just one shot on goal.

Making his ninth straight start in goal for Columbus, Leclaire finished up with 18 saves to drop to 23-15-5.

Leclaire entered the game the league leader with nine shutouts.

Notes : Calgary D Cory Sarich, whose consecutive games streak came to an end on Saturday at 453 games, was a healthy scratch for the second game in a row. ...Calgary played the second game in a stretch of eight straight games against teams that -- as of Tuesday night -- were not in a playoff position. ...The scoring slumps for Huselius and c Matthew Lombardi continue. Lombardi has no goals in 18 games and one in his last 29 while Huselius has no goals in 19... Nash had his five-game points streak snapped. Nash remains one point away from matching his career high for points (57), which was set last year in his sophomore season.