The only really good thing about the preseason for the Flames this year is the fact that it's over.
Over the weekend, Calgary fizzled against the Canucks (3-2) and the Sharks (5-1) sinking their exhibition record to a less than sparkling 3-3-1. And while preseason wins and losses are hardly worth losing sleep over, some concerns did manage to rear their heads during the Flames exhibition play:
- Lack of offense. Calgary never broke the 3 goal mark in any of their 7 games. While the powerplay was relatively impressive, the Flames were again unable to generate any sort of significant output at even-strength.
- Unimpressive defense. Calgary allowed 21 goals against in 7 games played, an average of exactly 3/game. Veteran defenders Roman Hamrlik and Andrei Zyuzin struggled mightily, finishing with (-5) and (-4) rankings respectively. In fact, the only Flame who managed to stay in the black was the injured Rhett Warrener (+1). Also, Kipper's stats through his 2 1/2 games are too ugly to publish here. One can only hope he's reverted back to superhuman status by Thursday.
- Chuck Kobasew. There are high hopes for Charles this coming season. Unfortunately, his performance thus far has done little to quiet the concerns regarding his inconsistent play. Chuck played great in the first pre-season tilt against Florida and then vanished without a trace afterwards.
- Alex Tanguay and Jarome Iginla. Both put up some okay offensive numbers (4 goals, 5 assists combined) but they hardly seemed a dynamic duo. Tanguay was downright terrible in his first game as a Flame and has yet to find a comfortable rhythym with Iginla. Jarome seems to be shooting as well as I can remember, but has yet to figure out how to best work with his newest linemate.
I can't tell you whether these are legitimate issues or not. Inconsistency of rosters and lack of interest from veterans tends to skew the validity of preseason stats, thereby almost completely nullifying their predicitive power. Probably of most concern is the lack of offense thing - only because we have a whole season of ES scoring futulity to look back on and cringe...
Flames preseason stats and such over at CBS.
Other News:
- Predictably, the Flames assigned rookies Richie Regehr, Dustin Boyd, Bradon Prust, Andrei Taratukhin and Brent Krahn to Omaha yesterday. Mark Giordano will remain with the big boys to fill in for the currently invalid Rhett Warrener. Also, it looks like Godard is going to stick with the big club, Im guessing to sub out with the likes of Darren McCarty every other contest. Eric Nystrom is still officially a Flame, though Im guessing he'll get dropped back down to the farm as soon as he's healthy.
- Sutter signed Andrew Ference to a three-year contract extension over the weekend as well. The fiesty but sometimes mentally challenged defender was scheduled to become a UFA after this season. No word yet on what the terms of the contract were.
My thoughts? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!....uh...prove me wrong, Ference. Prove me wrong.
