There are a lot of questions facing the Flames this year and lots on the line for some of the major players in the organization - and by that I certainly don't mean the likes of Jarome Iginla or Dion Phaneuf.
One of those guys is Mike Keenan. Although he's amongst the most successful coaches in league history, a large measure of that success was had earlier in his career. In the last half decade or so, failure has been stamped all over everything Keenan has touched, including his ill-conceived foray into general management down in Florida. The surprise surrounding his hiring last summer was in part due to his earned reputation as a team destroyer and in part due to a prevailing consensus that Keenan was probably out of the league for good in light of his declining record in the business.
Last season, the Flames played well under Keenan for spurts. They also played very poorly. The results weren't much different from the lost season under Playfair with the promised step forward with an established, hard-assed Iron Mike behind the bench failing to occur.
Before heading into the season opener, I considered the possiblity of a bad start to be the worst possible outcome for this team in it's current iteration, considering the circumstances. Kipper is fragile, the roster is expensive, there's no cap room to make adjustments and fan patience for middling results is at it's expiration date. Also, Keenan isn't known for being tolerant or patient towards failure, nor is he a gentle touch under pressure. From my angle, the risk of things going sour, resulting in a poisonous environment is perilously high if the Calgary suffers from their annual October nosedive.
Last game, I was completely baffled by many of the Keenan's decisions. Ranging from putting Conroy on the first line to sitting David Moss for a majority of the game to giving the emerging Dustin Boyd precisely zero time on the PP. The line combinations that appeared once it was panic time were, to my eye, totally arbitrary and weren't in any way beneficial.
As such, I'm curious to see what happens this evening, in the wake of such a one-sided dismantling at the hands of a sworn rival. Part of me hopes that Iron Mike will correct some of the obvious shortcomings we saw on Thursday, part of me fears that he'll begin to go off the deep end.
On that note, here's the practice lines from this morning, according to Inside the Flames:
Bertuzzi-Langkow-Iginla
Cammalleri-Lombardi-Bourque
Glencross-Conroy-Moss
Prust-Primeau-Roy
Pardy-Phaneuf
Regehr-Sarich
Vandermeer-Aucoin
Assuming this is the true line-up (it may not be) I have to say Im dismayed. Conroy on the third unit works for me and that Lombo line has promise. However, if you look closely you'll notice Dustin Boyd and Mark Giordano aren't included here. Meaning they could be healthy scratches this evening. Primeau, Prust, Roy, Pardy and Vandermeer (and Aucoin, considering how he played in Vancouver) should be ahead of Boyd and Gio in the press-box line. I don't know if this is message sending or motivational tactics or what, but the above is not the best possible line-up for this team. And if Keenan actually thinks that scratching the two guys mentioned is a sensible strategy then, folks...we have a major problem on our hands.
