In a sweet act of merciful kindness, the Detroit Red Wings pulled the plug on the fatally-ill Calgary Flames last night. While the OT period of game six was certainly "sudden-death", the term is in fact a misnomer considering Calgary's long, slow, painful march to oblivion. By the end of the game on Sunday, after being handily outplayed and outclassed for nearly the entire series, it was clear there was little left for the Flames but to be euthanized.
It's difficult, at this juncture, to consider this season anything but an unmitigated disaster for the Calgary organization. The Flames went from pre-season favorites to mid-season play-off hopefuls to post-season flunkies. All this despite the fact that the roster - one of the best the franchise has seen in over a decade - was bolstered and improved as the season progressed. They spent to the cap, made bold deadline deals to shore-up weaknesses and it didn't seem to make a lick of difference in terms of on-ice play. Sutter made some good moves this year (Tanguay for Leopold, Conroy for Lundmark, Stuart for Ference) and some bad ones (signing Friesen), but clearly the most telling error was the hiring of Playfair. Or, rather, the "not firing" of Nervous Jimmy when it was quite clear he'd lost the team back in March. It's plain as the nose on Tim Hunter's face that Ol' Canaryshirt was basically a 16 year old who was given keys to a Ferrari on his birthday; and, with all apologies to Dany Heatley, he pretty much drove it into a wall.
"Our play on the road speaks volumes," he said. "When you lose (Game 5) 5-1 and your goalie is still a star . . . something's not right. You guys do the math. We're open to being dissected now. It's not up to me to say what the problem is, but I think it's fairly obvious."
You said it, Rhett. I agree.
By the end of the year, the Calgary Flames weren't particularly good at anything. They didn't score more than 3 goals in the month of April. They allowed a lot of shots and generated very few. They weren't particularly physical or fast or intelligent. Their forecheck proved to be limp and ineffectual. Their break-out was easily stuffed. They trapped at times, but did so poorly. Their scorers were silenced. They lost their composure in critical games at critical times. Only Kiprusoff, operating alone, managed to maintain some vestige of excellence.
To put it plainly, the team lacked a cohesive, successful strategy. The fact that the Flames played their hearts out and were still embarrassingly over-matched yesterday speaks volumes about the will and mind of the man who was directing traffic behind the bench. The roster didn't lack skill and it didn't lack effort and it was still out-shot more than 2 to 1 in an elimination game in it's own building. If this isn't the clearest, most damning indictment of the coaching staff, I don't know what is.
My condemnation of Playfair is not a knee-jerk reaction to the disappointing round 1 loss. I was loudly questioning his abilities as far back as February. And the same issues I was harping on then - questionable roster decisions, terrible road performance, lack of consistency, lack of cohesion - proved to be the team's undoing in the post-season. In fact, not only were the aforementioned failings still evident come April, they were magnified and exploited by a comparable roster and a superior coach. This wasn't a series won by a chance bounce or questionable officiating. It was won decisively through a successful strategy carried out consistently by an adequately skilled and motivated line-up of players. Detroit's methods and goals were plain upon viewing - puck control and puck possession. Generate as many shots as possible while allowing as few as possible. Force players to the boards in the defensive end, double-team Iginla, two men on the puck at all times.
In contrast, I can't adequately detail what the Flames gameplan was. I'm not sure whether this is due to the fact that it was absent, poorly matched to the opponent or just not executed properly. Were the Flames trying to trap and take advantage of neutral zone errors? Create chances on the transition? Because they did none of those things competently. I think the trap was sorta part of the equation - due to the limp 1-2-2 forecheck Calgary frequently employed - but the Red Wings escaped the neutral zone with the puck so easily I can't really be sure.
Fuck and double fuck. What a waste of a season. Iginla and Kipper get one year older and the franchise takes a step back rather than forward. Left on the compost-heap is career-like-years for Iginla, Tanguay, Lombardi, Huselius and Langkow. Both Hamrlik and Stuart are UFA's come summer, potentially leaving a gaping hole on the blueline. I guess the only thing to truly look forward to in the off-season, besides Playfair walking the plank, of course, is the inevitable departure of deadweight like McCarty, Amonte and Friesen (and Warrener, if I had my way). Beyond that, the Flames are facing a lot of questions going into the final season of the Kipper-Iggy-Regehr era of this team.
