I was unable to take in the Flames game last night, being too cheap to order the Flames PPV match vs. the Avalanche. I was therefore reliant upon radio snippets and TV hilights for my game information. Naturally, as a result, my analysis of the match is based largely upon the boxscore and 2nd hand anecdotes. I should probably keep this brief...
- Shean Donovan was scratched last night, due mainly in part to his 20 game pointless drought. That is a pretty glaring stat, even for a 3rd line PK type like Donovan. Many people (myself included) thought that Dono would benefit from the crackdown on obstruction, thanks to his speed. Unfortunately, that hasn't come about. I hope the scratching will help to wake him up a bit.
- According to the NHL.com's "super stats", Byron Ritchie played a little bit more than Chuck Kobasew last night...leading me to wonder if Darryl shuffled up the lines a little last night. In fact, after Iginla, Marcus Nilson had the most ice time of any Flame forward at just over 20 minutes...(?)
- Congratualtions to Sauve for beating his former team. Extra kudos for stopping 9(!) Sakic shots during the game (and 1 in the shoot-out). Looks like Calgary might have a legitimate back-up on their hands.
- I postulated that Ference would be scratched from the line-up thanks to his defensive blunders over the last 2 games. However, looks like Sutter decided to go with both Ference and Marchment and dress 7 d-men...which may have been done in order to limit Ference's ice time or as some sort of warning tactic. Whichever it was, it seemed to work. Ference ended the night with an even rating (relatively good for him).
- Speaking of +/-, Langkow was a team worst -2 last night. Booooo.
- I can't believe we won a shoot-out against a team who's 3 shooters included Sakic, Hejduk and Tanguay.
- Finally Leopold starts getting pucks to the net with authority! I hope this propels him to many more multiple point games in the near future.
- Talk about secondary scoring...goals from Macdonald and Ritchie. Now if we could get primary and secondary scoring in the same game, I'd be positively glowing.
Other Stuff -
- Damn Oilers beat the Sharks in what was a horribly painful game to watch. It's the first I've seen of San Jose all year and I must say they look BAD. Not sure what the issue is down there, but this Shark team is a shadow of the 03/04 version (so far).
- The Jiri Fischer situation last night sure was scary. Reports today are that he's doing fine, which is good. I wonder if he'll ever play hockey (competitively) again?
- Who would've thought the Red Wings would go through Alberta without a win and the Blackhawks would go through without a loss? Of course, Detroit also promptly went home and lost to the Blues after their disasterous Western swing. It should be interesting to see if the 'Hawks can keep it going tonight against the Canucks, as well.
- Looks like Burke is ready to make the Ducks over in his own image. After dumping Federov and picking up Marchant, Burke banished promising rookies Getzlaf and Perry to the minors. Word is he's also shopping the underachieving Sykora around the league... Expect more moves as Burke tries to shake things up in Duck Town.
- Is anyone televising the Penguins vs. Capitals game tonight? It would be interesting to see the Crosby/Ovechkin match-up.
