After Saturday night's ball-dropping the Flames look to avoid sinking even deeper into the divisional basement when they play the Washington Capitals tonight (Hurrah! It's actually on sportsnet!!).
I couldn't watch the Preds game but by all accounts the Flames came out flat and only started to play decent hockey when they got down by two goals. The stats agree with this account: Calgary only managed 16 shots through the first two periods while giving up 30. Hardly the best way to start a game against a strong team and a known nemesis.
Other issues reared their ugly heads again. The Flames reverted back to being outright terrible at face-offs, winning 41% on the evening. In addition, Calgary took 7 penalties to the Nashville's 3. Before the game I mentioned the Flames would have to stay out of the box as much as possible to give themselves a chance to win. No doubt Playfair was preaching the same thing. Too bad the team didn't listen.
From a coaching standpoint, I would hope that the loss against the Preds spelled the end of the Tanguay/Langkow/Iginla trio. From the onset of the preseason and further that's a combination that has never been successful and Saturday night was no different. While Iginla did manage a couple of goals, the first was during a PP with Juice and Lombo. Tanguay wasn't anywhere to be found on the scoresheet: in fact he only had about 14 minutes of ice all night (less than Lombardi and Amonte), meaning Playfair probably dropped him from the #1 unit during the game. Also, it looks like Kobasew is back getting his customary 9 minutes of ice, which drives me crazy. Charles is young, fast and can score - let him loose! Add in the fact that Huselius had all of 11 minutes on Saturday (as opposed to Friesen's 12 or Lundmark's 14)and one can see why the Flames had (have) trouble scoring...no ice-time for the skilled guys!
Sunday offered a glimmer of hope, however. It was mentioned in "TSN ice-chips" (now gone) that Playfair had re-united Juice with Langkow/Iginla and Tanguay with Lombo/Kobasew for Sunday's practice. Tanguay never played better than when he was servicing the left side on the "1A" line and Huselius needs top flight linemates to make any sort of difference. With Lombardi playing excellent hockey, I figure this gives the Flames a decent two pronged attack (while simultaneously taking the pressure off of Tanguay to click with Iginla). If the Flames can re-ignite the offense they found against Montreal and Toronto while continuing to improve on the defensive side, they should be able to find their way back into the win column. I hope.
Positives:
- Iginla scores another 2 goals. He has 3 goals and an assist in his last 3 games.
- By all accounts, Kipper was amazing on Saturday. Apparently he kept the score within reach.
- Lombardi with another point. Eight points in the first 9 games is a great start for Lombo.
Negatives:
- Terrible start against a dangerous foe. Duh.
- Discipline. As mentioned, another 7 PPs against.
- Offense. Another night another 1 goal loss.
- Alex Tanguay. Flubbed a couple of chances and was ineffective otherwise. Only 5 points in 9 games so far.
- Secondary scoring. Iginla scores and the rest of the team watches.
- Flames once again limp into November as one of the worst teams in the league.
The Caps are in town after being shut-out by the Oilers on Saturday. Washington has a couple of dangerous forwards in Ovechkin and Semin, a decent starting goaltender in Kolzig and little else. The Flames will need to challenge the Caps lackluster blueline corps (Brian Pothier, who was a 6th defenseman in Ottawa, plays nearly 30 minutes a night in Washington) while shutting down Ovechkin's line. The Dion should be back in the line-up after missing Saturday's game thanks to flu symptoms, so it should be interesting to see how he matches up against the Russian phenom...
