Well that was a whole heap of garbage. Mostly.
Following the tradition of losing season-openers (and October games in general), Calgary turned in what can only charitably be called a poor effort last night: no real cohesion, an inability to execute basic plays, a lack of urgency and a half dozen remarkably bone-headed gaffes.
Let's start the finger pointing with Adrian Aucoin. He was $4M worth of suck. He looked like a guy that was pulled out of a beer league and asked to play defense in the NHL. He was directly responsible for the first goal against thanks to a series of blunders in his own end. He also took the slashing penalty that led to the 5on3 PP that in turn led to the Flyers second goal. Keenan eventually demoted him to the 3rd pairing (he began the night beside Regehr) with Anders Eriksson, and he still managed to look lost. By the end of the evening, Aucoin had pretty much played himself off of the PP and the PK. His performance made me lament the loss of Hamrlik and appreciate the play of Rhett Warrener. If you listened carefully last night, you could hear a distinct hint of laughter emanating from the East...Chicago fans haven't had a lot to laugh about over the last few years, so I don't begrudge them their mirth.
To be fair, it was one game. A very small sample size. Tanguay was pretty bad in his Flames debut last season as well and he rounded into form.
It's harder for me to give Aucoin the benefit of the doubt, however, considering he's been pretty bad for 2 straight seasons now. His acquisition was a big gamble and already it has "major blunder" written all over it. Danny Markov is still unsigned, right?
Not that Eriksson was much better. He saw butter soft minutes, only about 10 of them, and still managed to look the turd. His horrendous miscue that handed the Flyers the victory with 2 minutes remaining was just the icing on the cake. He had trouble handling the puck all night: picture two magnets with like poles facing one another. That was Eriksson and the puck. His performance made me lament the loss of Giordano and appreciate the play of Andrei Zyuzin (not really on the latter point, but at least Zyuzin was ever so slightly cheaper). That signing made little sense to me at the time and makes even less sense now. It's not like the Flames played Detroit or San Jose either...imagine what will happen when he has to face a team who's second line has better options than Joffrey Lupul. Terrifying. Oh well, at least he's a veteran, right??
There were lots of ordinary performances besides the horrible ones. Iginla and Tanguay were largely ineffective, especially at ES. Going into the game, I figured there'd be a good chance of Calgary's big guns eating the Flyers lackluster blueline/depth players for breakfast. Alas, they couldn't seem to get anything going. Braydon Coburn and Darien Hatcher were just too solid.
In addition, Jarome Iginla took 2 hooking penalties, including one in the final minute that pretty much washed out any chance of the Flames evening the game. Not the best game for the Captain.
I barely noticed Owen Nolan at all.
Wayne Primeau played all of 9 minutes and was still -2.
Bleh.
It wasn't all terrible though. Matthew Lombardi played decently (and was actually rewarded with increased ice-time! A foreign concept under Playfair). Damond Langkow managed 6 shots on net and 2 PP goals. Rhett Warrener was forced back into the top 4 once Aucoin proved his uselessness and he played pretty decently.
The best of a bad lot was Dion Phaneuf, and it wasn't even close. There's been some hand-wringing in the off-season by pundits and Flames fans over Dion's perceived "plateauing" last season, but, if last night is any kind of indication of how he'll perform this season, then the apprehension is unfounded. He led all Calgary skaters in ice time (31:20), including more than 4 minutes short-handed and 20 minutes at even-strength. He was no less than solid at both ends of the ice. He pinched at the right times and was physical at the right times. He singlehandedly penetrated the offensive zone more than once. Might be one of the best games I've seen Phaneuf play in a long time, in fact.
Overall, the Flames still have a ways to go. They didn't look like a good team, let alone the elite team that people rightly expect when looking at the roster. At times, they appeared to be skating in oatmeal and I probably couldn't count the number of outlet passes that were 3 feet ahead or behind their target. The entire squad also seems unable to bear down and bury scoring chances in and around the slot. That was something I noticed in the pre-season (especially in their loss to the Canucks at home) and it was still in full effect against Philly.
The good news is, Keenan's bench management seems less capricious and arbitrary than Playfair's thus far. Based on the evidence from yesterday, he has no issue demoting the anchors and promoting the effective players. He didn't hesitate to demote Conroy and Aucoin when it was clear they weren't getting the job done, for example. At least I can take a modicum of solace from that. For now. There will be little consolation if these kinds of performances persist for too much longer.
