Amidst swirling trade rumors regarding Roman Hamrlik and the Philadelphia Flyers, it looks like the Flames are going to try swtiching up their d-pairings for tonight's match against the BJ's.
Phaneuf will be re-united with Hammer while Warrener will move up with Regehr, leaving Zyuzin and Ference as the third pairing.
My guess is Warrener and Regehr will be the "shut-down" duo this evening, although with Warrener struggling so badly Im not sure how well that will work out. It will also be interesting to see if Zyuzin will be able to effectively clean up Ference's miscues. Oh well. Anything's worth a shot at this point.
The forward line are litte bit more up in the air. Prust and Boyd remain with the team, despite being primarily non-factors last game. I personally hope Lundmark is re-inserted into the line-up, though Im not holding my breath. I would also like to see one of Prust or Ritchie playing instead of the affable Darren McCarty. Likable he is. Effective he ain't.
As far as the top two lines are concerned, Im praying for Juice/Langow/Iginla and Tanguay/Lombardi/Kobasew combinations. Only because it's remotely possible that Playfair may come up with these lines. If I was the coach (and, let's face it, I should be), Tanguay/Lombardi/Iginla would be my top unit with Juice/Langkow/Kobasew coming in second. This set-up rewards Lombo for his stellar play so far this season and increases his ice time. Which is a good thing considering Lombardi has as many ES points as Langkow does (5) despite playing nearly 30 minutes less than him at 5on5 through the first 11 games (even though Langkow more frequently plays with superior quality linemates). That adds up to Lombo being the better player in my books. And that's not even taking into account the fact that Langkow's face-off win percentage and +/- rating are significantly worse than Matthew's...
For those interested, Matt has other thoughts about the Lombardi topic over at BofA.
Anyhoo, coach critiquing aside, this evenings match represents a golden opportunity for the Flames to pick themselves up. Columbus is struggling as much the Flames: in fact, they're one of the few teams that actually scores less than Calgary does, and offense is supposed to be their organizational strength. Nash, Federov, Carter and Zherdev are all mired in minor scoring slumps and the Blue Jackets back-end is hardly anything to fear once you get past Foote and Klesla.
So, as mentioned, Columbus is an opponent ripe for the picking. Course, that's probably what they're saying about the Flames. One way or the other, though, a losing streak is going to end tonight. And I really, REALLY hope it's ours.
