Calgary starts out a potentially season-killing 6 game roadie against the Hawks tomorrow. A .500 or less trip will likely mean a deep, dank hole from which escape will be all but impossible. If the Flames drop the ball the next couple weeks, expect some desperate measures to take effect. Big trades, a selling off of assets or the firing of a coach aren't improbable.
Anyways, as you've no doubt heard by now, Regehr suffered a deep bruise to his ankle rather than a break the other night. That probably reduces his down time to a matter of days rather than weeks. So that's good.
He won't be in the line-up against Chicago though. And that's bad for a number of reasons:
1.) The Blackhawks have been a tough team for Calgary at the best of times the last few seasons.
2.) This isn't the best of times. The Flames have a hurt/struggling Phaneuf, Sarich, a somewhat effective Aucoin and a bunch of fringe players playing defense in the absence of Regehr.
3.) Martin Havlat is back in the line-up for the Hawks. He's a scary, game-breaking talent. And they were winning before he returned.
4.) Calgary's on the road and half their d-corps is highly exploitable. Pardy/Hale vs. Havlat = goals against.
5.) The Hawks are the best team in the league at scoring SH goals. The Flames are the best team in the league at giving them up.
For what it's worth, Iginla is playing lights out and he's re-enlivened Huselius and Langkow. And Kipper's played pretty decently the last few games (shoot-outs and break-aways aside).
On another note, what the hell was Keenan doing last game? his matching and line combinations seemed almost arbitrary to my eye. For example - guess which forward played the most against Sidney Crosby? Give-up? The answer is...Craig Conroy (followed closely by Tanguay). Jarome Iginla played mostly against Talbot, Malkin and Sykora. Hale and Phaneuf started the game against Crosby's line, but Eriksson and Phaneuf ended up being the guys who saw the most of him by the end of the night (Regehr only played 9 minutes ES because of his injury). That's right - Eriksson saw more time against Crosby than Adrian Aucoin or Cory Sarich (in the case of Aucoin MUCH MORE. In fact, Aucoin played less and was more sheltered than Hale last game). So...is Aucoin still sick? injured? Or does Keenan trust him that little? And how does Eriksson see more of Crosby than our $3.6M shut-down, free-agent signing? Ugh...
To top it all off, Keenan put Nystrom and Boyd on the ice against Crosby in the final minute of tie game. There's giving the kids a vote of confidence after a good game and then there's gambling needlessly.
I don't know what Keenan was trying to accomplish with his mad alchemy, but a lot of it flew in the face of some of his established strategies. Therefore I have no idea what to expect tomorrow, except for some heavy sheltering of the 3rd defensive pairing. Im guessing Iginla will skate with Langkow and Huselius since they've been clicking, but that's all I got. Whatever he does, lets hope it works.
Go Flames.
