The locals are getting restless. Nooses are being fashioned from thick, sturdy lengths of rope. Former disciples of the Kipprusoffian Church are jotting down their theses which they plan to nail to the Great Finnish Church in short order. The uprising is not yet in full-swing; the lynch mob, with pitch-forks and torches grasped firmly in their sweaty hands, has yet to take to the street. But the disillusioned mutters that are so often the basis of a violent uprising are becoming audible.
And for good reason. The Flames are underachieving. Again. They currently languish near the bottom of the Western conference and have only 10 wins in 25 games played. They have a negative goal differential and horrible special teams. The offense has dried up in November, but the defense continues to be mediocre. The starting goalie with a fresh new extension has some of the worst stats in the league. The club is pressed close to the cap and injuries are starting to mount. The light of the post-season grows dimmer with each successive loss: in order to squeak into a play-off spot in April (with 93 points being the hypothetical cut-off point), Calgary will have to garner 70 points from their final 57 games - equivalent to a 30-17-10 record. In short, there's a lot to be unhappy about as a Flames fan right now.
I have some (what I consider to be) legitimate beefs with the manner in which Sutter has managed this roster the last couple seasons, but, to be fair to him, this group shouldn't be as bad as they are. The Kiprusoff and Regehr early season struggles can't be hung on Darryl, nor can the rotten puck-luck that's plagued the team through the first quarter. This suggests that there's nowhere to go but up for the Flames - but the question remains, how far up? Calgary needs to win at least 53% of their remain games to even have a sniff at a play-off position (a 13% increase over their current winning percentage), let alone any kind of shot at the division title (which should reasonably be a goal for this roster). That's a pretty substantial turn-around and the club has to improve in basically every aspect of play. To further complicate things, Sutter doesn't have the assets or cap space to make a big splash in the trade market: most of the pieces that would garner any interest from other teams are the only players currently making any kind of meaningful contribution on the ice.
The ice is getting thin and the heat's being turned up. This Franchise is facing the possibility of missing the post-season with it's most expensive roster ever with the added gut-punch of spending more money in the off-season just to maintain the status-quo. The pieces are going to have to fall into place very quickly, very soon or Sutter and the rest of the front office are going to have a fan instigated coup d'etat on their hands.
