With an 8 day break descending on the Flames I guess it's a good time to discuss the various and sundry.
- Sutter, probably tiring of the press harassing one his best players, told everyone to STFU about trading Tanguay:
"I was in Montreal, Boston and New Jersey scouting last week because we don't play those teams often, so some idiot in the media assumes we're trading Alex Tanguay to Montreal.
"Honest to God, there's about 20 of you guys who cover us really well and about five others who are complete idiots who don't know a thing about it...
"I say Alex Tanguay is one of the top players in the league and you think 'He's just saying that so he can trade him.' If I say he's a bad player, it's because I can't get rid of him."
And that should be that.
- Eric Nystrom got send back to the QC last night, partially because the Flames have 23 healthy players in the line-up and partially because he was really struggling to compete before he got injured. Until someone else gets injured or booted out of town, expect him to remain there.
- The good news about Nystrom in QC means no more kid line. Matt takes a swipe at this issue in his post today...it's something both of us have been hammering at for awhile now. Expect Matthew Lombardi to suddenly look much more capable now that he's playing with NHL caliber players.
- Keenan began the game with a Warrener/Phaneuf pairing last night instead what I thought would be the more prudent duo (Aucoin/Phaneuf). Sure enough, it only took a few minutes for Rhett to blow a routine play and cause a goal against for Iron Mike to see the light. Aucoin, whom I thought looked like a 4M turd in the month October, has really turned things around and was playing pretty well on the 3rd pairing with Hale. I think he's the best option the Flames have to play Dion (right now), as the two of them looked a lot steadier than the long-standing Eriksson/Phaneuf coupling (hmmm...wonder why?). I can only HOPE Keenan sticks with it once Anders returns from his shoulder injury.
- There hasn't been a lot of good news coming out the farm club this year. A lot of the guys who showed promise last season - Van Der Gulik, Prust, Ramholt - have taken one or two steps back this year. Kris Chucko is still a non-entity, even at the AHL level, and Pelech is still years away from making an impact (if ever). The lone bright spot seems to be late summer signee Grant Stevenson, who leads the club in all significant offensive categories with 22 goals and 47 points in 44 GP. He recently scored 4 goals in a single game and is currently 6th in terms of AHL point-getters.
Of course, Stevenson has NHL experience and is one of the older guys on the team so it follows that he'd be one of bigger contributors. Still, one wonders if his play will eventually warrant a call-up at some point in the future? The preponderance of extra bodies says "no", but injuries and trades do happen...
- The Flames head into the break with a positive GD and some glimmer of an effective Kipper and actual, honest-to-god players beyond the first line. The only onion in the ointment recently has been the play of Jarome Iginla. He's goalless in 7, which is his longest slump in two seasons, and he's looked decidedly ordinary for the last week or so at least. If he's injured or tired, I hope the rest does him good. If not, he really needs to drink some more Mr.Hyde formula and start to kick ass again. If Calgary can combine December Jarome/offense with January Kipper/defense, then we might have something here. Easier said than done, I know.
- Is anyone actually going to watch the All-star game? How many of the starters dropped out now? Even the players don't seem to care about it.
