- Last night made obvious the differences between Playfair and Keenan as coaches. Iron Mike ran one of the most active benches I've ever seen, inserting Iginla at various times, switching up combinations and match-ups. Playfair, on the other hand, always looked overmatched and impotent on the road last season, particularly in the post-season. Nervous Jimmy got served his lunch by Babcock last April while Keenan may have out-coached Wilson last night.
- Is anyone else bamboozled by the Eriksson situation? How can a guy either be a healthy scratch or a top 4 defenseman? Why would Keenan scratch Hale through to the end the year...and then mysteriously re-insert him when it mattered the most (at Eriksson's expense). Don't get me wrong, I agree with the move...I just don't understand what determined it. Perhaps the sequence where Burrows made an ass of Eriksson in the final game of the regular season (one-on-one, mvoing into the Flames zone. Burrows makes a nifty little move to the right, Eriksson responds by stumbling over his own feet and out of the way entirely. Miikka saves the ensuing break-away) was a tipping point?
- I thought Tanguay's play was just so-so last night. He looked nervous to me, similar to his first month as a Flame last season. He forced a lot of offensive plays that weren't there, particularly at the blueline. His passes were a bit off and he never seemed really sure of himself. While he wasn't bad, he surely wasn't the difference maker he can be.
- Speaking of shoddy performances, the worst Flame on the ice was probably Cory Sarich. Marleau turned him into a pylon on the first goal against and then he was caught running around shortly thereafter and took the first Flames penalty of the night (which isn't too surprising). Then again in the third, he ran down a puck along the Sharks blueline that Regehr was already pursuing...which resulted in a collision between the two Calgary players and a Joe Thorton break-away (that Kipper thankfully turned aside).
Is it too early to be disappointed by the Sarich signing? I mean, he does go through periods of being pretty damn effective, but when he's off, he's way off. And because of the quality of competition he faces, it usually has pretty grave repercussions for the Flames when he struggles.
Sarich is big and strong, hits hard and typically has good positioning. However, he's also somewhat inconsistent, bad with the puck, not very mobile and useless as far as offense is concerned. He ended up in the red at ES this year and is the worst player on the team in terms of taking and drawing penalties. Not the best value* for 3.6M/year.
*(On a related note - Jordan Leopold was a healthy scratch for Avs last night. What I wouldn't give to have him back on the Flames and with Regehr @ 1.5M/year, even with his injury concerns...)
- One of the reasons Calgary won last night was the relatively "loose" reffing. There were chippy calls missed on both sides of the ledger which works fine the Flames. As mentioned here and elsewhere, ES is where it's at for Calgary in this series - if the reffing remains true to the standard set last night, the Flames have a much better chance of victory.
- San Jose got ton of shots last night, which wasn't unexpected, but the count was somewhat inflated by a whole bunch of perimeter shots:
According to the ESPN chart, 14 of san Jose's 39 shots came from top of the face-off circle or farther. The Flames had 7 of those in comparison.
This isn't to say the Sharks didn't outchance the Flames (they did) or that Kipper wasn't great (he was), but the difference in quality opportunities was probably closer than the shot clock suggests.
- Peter Mahr mentioned this morning that the Flames have three times made long runs in the play-offs when Calgary has experience a freak snow-storm in April. That's about the only positive I can take from the foot of slushy white stuff currently clogging the city's streets.
- Tonight, the Flames have a chance to take a nice lead in the series (although I'd be pretty happy with the split myself), and get one step closer to making me and my dour predictions look foolish. That's humble pie I'd gladly eat, however.
Go Flames!
