"On the Road Again" is not a song you'll hear in this teams dressing room.
Calgary was a game below .500 on the road last year if I remember correctly. And they still won their division. I wrote literally thousands of words last season bemoaning the Flame's Jekyll and Hyde tendencies. And now here we go again this season. World beaters at home. Apathetic push-overs on the road. Calgary's special teams are losing them games - when they're the visitng team. I haven't crunched the numbers, but you can bet the Flames would have at least median PP & PK numbers if their away performances were anything like their home ones...
which is naturally the most frustrating part. The Flames obviously have the ability to get the job done - but simply can't seem to put the pieces together when staying in hotels.
Not that any of this is a mystery to the players. Only 21 games into his Calgary career, Alex Tanguay has already noticed the marked difference between Home Flames and Away Flames:
"It seems like we play a different game on the road, so we need to sharpen up and play the same way we play at home. We know if you don't work hard, you're not going to play in their zone very often. And in the third period, we didn't work as hard as we needed to."Course, knowing about a problem and doing something about it are two different things.
And the task doesn't get any easier tonight. Calgary is facing the WC leading Anaheim Ducks, who are a mighty 11-1-4 at the Pond (or whatever it's called these days) so far. Not the best place to visit when your road record is 3-6-2. The only good news for Flames fans is that Calgary tends to play better in the 2nd game of back-to-backs for some reason. They beat St. Louis on the road after losing to Columbus in overtime the night before and recently beat up on Chicago after suffering a loss to Edmonton 24 hours earlier. Tonight I guess we'll see which pattern will win out: 2nd night winners or Domesick losers.
Visit Sleek for a view from the other side.
