It was fun while it lasted, wasn't it? Right up until that final performance I guess.
Appropriately, all the problems that made the Flames an average team during the regular season were in full view last night. The immobile defense corps. The poor puck-distribution. The bad transition game. The lack of any kind of offensive push with Iginla off the ice. Mediocre goaltending. Losing the special teams battle. A veritable rogues gallery of the team's warts.
But first, let's get this out of the way: the Sharks played an absolute whale of game yesterday. They pressured the Flame's lumbering defense whenever they had the puck and turned the neutral zone into The Nightmarish Place of Inevitable Turn-overs. After SJS took the lead in the 2nd period, they executed a nearly perfect defensive game, excepting Primeau's fluke goal. They were, by far, the better team last night and deserve to move on. Full credit to them.
And now back to your regularly scheduled bitching --
Everything the Flames did well to stretch the series to a seventh game seemingly went out the window last night. The team's glaring weaknesses (*ahem* Eriksson) finally overwhelmed whatever ineffable force was holding them at bay the last couple of games. I think that goes back to Matt's screed on consistency in sports in general (and hockey in particular): Flames were good enough to bring it sometimes, but not all the time. In short, and to be perfectly glib about it - talent will out. And it finally did last night. Which is why we play 7 games I guess.
Probably a lot is going to be made of Keenan yanking Kipper after the 4th goal. From my perspective, the loss was a foregone conclusion at that point and it wouldn't have mattered what Keenan did from then on. His options were pretty limited - pull Kipper, call a time-out - and neither was going to make much of an impact. The team was being out-shot 3:1 at that point in the game and the Franchise goalie had allowed 4 goals mid-way through the second period. The Fat Lady was in costume and already warming up by the time Kipper sat down.
For what it's worth, I think Keenan did as much as can be expected with this roster. I certainly didn't agree with all of his moves this year - Godard in the line-up, Eriksson in the top 4, beating up on Juice down the stretch - but at least he managed to evoke something more than the limp whimper we saw from the club last April. I did like Keenan's active bench management during the series although there were times he even out-smarted himself. What Im getting at I guess is: I dont think Keenan was part of the problem like Nervous Jimmy was last year. I wouldn't be against Iron Mike returning as the Flames coach next year.
I'm going to hold off on the season's postmortem for now. Allow for some time to mourn. There's a lot to go over, but also a lot of time to go over it. I'll let the Furies rest for now.
