Im going to avoid making sweeping proclamations after a single beat down because it's tempting after a game like last night's to just throw the whole team under the bus and decide to cheer for someone else. I'll at least wait till the quarter season mark to do that.
Still, I feel like I need a target for my rage and disgust. A stress-ball. A punching bag. An...Adrian Aucoin.
Dude is brutal this year. Brutal. I thought as much in the summer, but that hasn't taken the sting out of his third-pairing-ness, nor his giant pay-cheque. Last night, he made a curious decision to wander into his partners space during a 2on2 rush in the neutral zone. The puck was passed to Aucoin's man, who promptly sped into the generous portion of open-ice left by the wandering Shinpad, resulting in a goal against. Of course, sometimes defensemen make a poor reads like this, but most of them are mobile enough to recover. Not Aucoin.
And, for what seems like the 10th time this year, Aucoin had a shot blocked during a power play, which led to a partial short-handed break-away, which led to an Aucoin hooking penalty. If you recall, the same exact thing happened against Nashville, which reuslted in Fiddler's SH penalty-shot goal.
Currently, Aucoin leads the team with 6.3 shots blocked/60 minutes of ice. That's 2 more than Giordano, who is in second place. Keep in mind, that's just ES ice: Im sure his power play number is much higher.
I know Aucoin is stuck on the team for the remainder of his contract, but I've had it up to here with him. The fact that the team is wasting 4M + 2.35M + 2.3M (8.65M) in cap space on him, Warrener and Vandermeer makes me nauseous.
Anyways, for those of you who didn't see the game, here's a brief symbolic review:
Flames have until next Tuesday to sit and be disastified with their performance. I wonder if Keenan's shirt collar is starting to feel a little tight?
