The Flames took advantage of a tired Dallas team to get the victory last night.
To a degree, anyways.
Calgary further improved on a bunch of stuff in yesterday's game: they won the majority of face-offs for a change and their PK was a second away from being flawless. They lead in the hits department and Kipper was the best goalie on the ice.
On the other hand, some of the weaknesses that have been apparent since day one were still quite obviously in attendence: a terrible, terrible powerplay and an easily stuffed break-out. The result of the two was the inabilty to generate more shots than the opposition, another affliction suffered by this club more often than not thus far this season.
I won't rain on the parade any further, however. This win was quite obviously a step in the right direction. The Flames are slowly but surely shoring up their deficiencies while maintaining their strengths. Im not sure that the Calgary break-out will ever improve much (it's been the same the last few years - rim the puck along the boards. Ugh), but one more goal a night out of the PP would do wonders for the Flame's record, no doubt. Consider that Calgary has allowed the 2nd least amount of goals in the league at even strength. If the PK is indeed back on track, Calgary would easily get back into the black in terms of total goal differential if they had any sort of PP worth talking about. And a positive goal differential always = wins.
Positives:
- Tony Amonte. Probably his best game as a Flame. Tireless penalty killer and actually looked dangerous in the offensive zone. All this after I've been ripping into him around here for the last few weeks.
- Roman Hamrlik. He's enjoyed a renaissance since being re-teamed with Phaneuf. Is currently the Flames #1 defenseman.
- Jarome Iginla. Takes draws, kills penalties, sets up teammates on the PP. There's nothing that Jarome currently isn't doing well.
- Andrew Ference. Big fight and a relatively error free evening. Lord I hope he keeps it up.
- Miika Kiprusoff. Although the team played well, Kipper is probably the reason they won the game.
Negatives:
- The PP. 0 for 7 and only 2 shots on goal. Laughable.
- The break-out. I've concluded that the Flames break-out is one of the worst in the league. It's the primary reason the Flames get hemmed in their own end for long sequences. More direct tape to tape passes and something besides rimming the puck to a winger standing still on the half-boards is required.
- Only 17 shots on goal. The Flames actually generated a decent amount of scoring chances, but ended up either making one too many passes or hitting the post most of the time.
- Injury woes. Here we go. With Zyuzin, Friesen and Yelle already on the shelf, messiah-turned-scapegoat Alex Tanguay hurts his shoulder delivering a hit. No word on the extent of the injury yet.
Next up - the mighty (in nature if not by name) Ducks.
