trip news and such will be delayed until further notice...
The Flames take on the struggling Boston Bruins tonight. Seems the Chara lead Beantowners have stumbled out of the gate despite the significant additions of Savard, Kessel and the Big Z in the off-season: the Bruins only gathered 3 points from the first 5 games and were outscored 21-10 in that time.
Course, the Flames haven't been "Sabre-ing up" the league themselves either. Thanks to back to back 5-4 losses to Toronto and Montreal, there's some speculation that the team reverted to a more "run-and-gun" system (either through de facto application by the coaches or a du jour implementation by the players), resulting in the Oiler style 5-4 set-backs.
Personally, I think the truth of the matter is much more simple, if less intuitive: mediocre goaltending and terrible special teams. As Matt points out in his Game-day thread, the Flames have been laughably bad on both the PP and the PK thus far this season. Consider the Montreal game: 3 PP and 1 SH goal against. Simple things like losing face-offs and allowing shots from the point were the culprits here - the fact that Calgary actually managed to bury some of their scoring chances for a change is an unsullied and encouraging positive. To the point, I don't believe the Flames have to stop scoring 4 goals a game in order to prevent 5 goals against. The two need not be mutually exclusive. A stellar Kipper and/or average special teams play wins us the game in Montreal - not fear and trembling whenever a forward crosses the threshold into enemy territory.
Individually, there have been some excellent performances from Lombardi, Kobasew and Giordano recently. The fact that the second line (Tanguay-Lombo-Kobasew) was easily the Flames best against the Habs was a required step in the "secondary scoring" direction. Further, although it was discouraging to see him whiff on ANOTHER break-away on Tuesday, Iginla has been playing at a level superior to that which we saw from him a year ago. Once the PP wakes up, expect Jarome and Huselius to start potting a few more.
The disappointing few include Langkow, Kipper and Amonte. Beyond his beauty goal on Saturday night, Langkow has looked rather stunned out there. For evidence, see his awful, awful give-away to Johnson versus Montreal (the result was Bonk's 2nd goal). That was quite simply a PeeWee level error on his part. Amonte has been the blah player he showed he was last year - fast and wily and pretty much useless in the offensive zone.
Kipper hasn't been terrible recently, but he certainly hasn't been great: Sundin's overtime winner, for example, was a pretty stoppable shot. The Bonk, Kovalev goals as well as the second Souray marker were also archetypal "big saves" for Kiprusoff on most nights previously. Like last year, expect Kipper to return to form sooner rather than later (partially dependent on when the Flames get their ST act together).
Overall, color me optimistic about tonight and beyond. I was most worried about the Flames scoring some goals. You'd find me far more pessimistic had we lost the past two contests 3-1 or 3-2...
