I've written a LOT for this blog the last few years. There's been the occasional guest post here and there by some of my acquaintances...but by and large my voice has been the predominant one.
Im starting to think another regular contributor is needed around here. Maybe to balance out the perspective a little. Or at least add some diversity to the proceedings. The guys over at Battle of California recently did something similar and I think the addition of Kings blogger Rudy Kelly has made an already very good blog even better.
Some expectations:
- Gotta be a Flames fan, naturally.
- A reasonable command of the English language and the ability to self edit (not that I'm amazing at either myself).
- Depth of analysis. You don't have to be into the fancy numbers and advanced stats that so fascinate me and the Oilogosphere, but a level of reasoning above "FLames are will be Number 1!!!1" is required.
- A sense of humor would be nice.
- An ability to post on a semi-regular basis. You don't have to be Lowetide prolific; two or three posts a week would be acceptable.
I don't know if anyone's actually going to take me up on this offer (although there are regular Flames commenters here and at Battle of Alberta who I think could be/should be blogging already - Mclea, Peter, Jonesin, Subversive, Ngthagg, others), but I figure it's worth a shot. Anyone interested, drop me a line at the email listed on the right hand side. A "why I want to blog" blurb and perhaps a "sample post" would be helpful.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Ducks at Flames Pregame
It's the battle of the early season disappointments. The reigning champs have 1 more win and 3 more points than the flickering Flames and own an even worse GD (-9 vs -7). Their special teams as almost as deplorable and they've only scored 2 more goals than the Edmonton Oilers. Also, they have Todd Bertuzzi.
It may not be about who plays better tonight, just who sucks less. The Ducks are an unimpressive 3-7-1 on the road so far, while the Flames are a median 6-6-2 at home. Both clubs are coming off disheartening losses. Neither can seem to put together any kind of consistent winning streak. Tonight's game really might be the professional sport equivalent of a bum fight.
To brandish a shop-worn bromide, the Flames are starting to venture dangerously close to "must-win" territory for various reasons (see post below). There's lots wrong with the team, but the first real step towards redemption begins and ends with Kiprusoff's play. He's been victimized by bad bounces and bad defense so far, but, let's face it, that hasn't stopped him from being spectacular in the past (see last year's play-offs for evidence). There's something wrong in the typically unflappable Fin's world right now and it needs to be corrected as quickly as possible. Even if all the other suck were suddenly righted, the Flames still stand little chance of success with Kipper doing his best Andrew Raycroft impression.
Prediction - None. I'll let the rapture stand alone for now.
- Oh yeah - Aucoin, Yelle and Nolan are all hurt (Nolan's a GTD) meaning Boyd, Smith (probably) and Tim-freeking-Ramholt are in the line-up tonight. This could get ugly despite the crappy, hung-over opposition.
Visit Sleek for his equally depressing preview.
It may not be about who plays better tonight, just who sucks less. The Ducks are an unimpressive 3-7-1 on the road so far, while the Flames are a median 6-6-2 at home. Both clubs are coming off disheartening losses. Neither can seem to put together any kind of consistent winning streak. Tonight's game really might be the professional sport equivalent of a bum fight.
To brandish a shop-worn bromide, the Flames are starting to venture dangerously close to "must-win" territory for various reasons (see post below). There's lots wrong with the team, but the first real step towards redemption begins and ends with Kiprusoff's play. He's been victimized by bad bounces and bad defense so far, but, let's face it, that hasn't stopped him from being spectacular in the past (see last year's play-offs for evidence). There's something wrong in the typically unflappable Fin's world right now and it needs to be corrected as quickly as possible. Even if all the other suck were suddenly righted, the Flames still stand little chance of success with Kipper doing his best Andrew Raycroft impression.
Prediction - None. I'll let the rapture stand alone for now.
- Oh yeah - Aucoin, Yelle and Nolan are all hurt (Nolan's a GTD) meaning Boyd, Smith (probably) and Tim-freeking-Ramholt are in the line-up tonight. This could get ugly despite the crappy, hung-over opposition.
Visit Sleek for his equally depressing preview.
Fan IRE(D)
The locals are getting restless. Nooses are being fashioned from thick, sturdy lengths of rope. Former disciples of the Kipprusoffian Church are jotting down their theses which they plan to nail to the Great Finnish Church in short order. The uprising is not yet in full-swing; the lynch mob, with pitch-forks and torches grasped firmly in their sweaty hands, has yet to take to the street. But the disillusioned mutters that are so often the basis of a violent uprising are becoming audible.
And for good reason. The Flames are underachieving. Again. They currently languish near the bottom of the Western conference and have only 10 wins in 25 games played. They have a negative goal differential and horrible special teams. The offense has dried up in November, but the defense continues to be mediocre. The starting goalie with a fresh new extension has some of the worst stats in the league. The club is pressed close to the cap and injuries are starting to mount. The light of the post-season grows dimmer with each successive loss: in order to squeak into a play-off spot in April (with 93 points being the hypothetical cut-off point), Calgary will have to garner 70 points from their final 57 games - equivalent to a 30-17-10 record. In short, there's a lot to be unhappy about as a Flames fan right now.
I have some (what I consider to be) legitimate beefs with the manner in which Sutter has managed this roster the last couple seasons, but, to be fair to him, this group shouldn't be as bad as they are. The Kiprusoff and Regehr early season struggles can't be hung on Darryl, nor can the rotten puck-luck that's plagued the team through the first quarter. This suggests that there's nowhere to go but up for the Flames - but the question remains, how far up? Calgary needs to win at least 53% of their remain games to even have a sniff at a play-off position (a 13% increase over their current winning percentage), let alone any kind of shot at the division title (which should reasonably be a goal for this roster). That's a pretty substantial turn-around and the club has to improve in basically every aspect of play. To further complicate things, Sutter doesn't have the assets or cap space to make a big splash in the trade market: most of the pieces that would garner any interest from other teams are the only players currently making any kind of meaningful contribution on the ice.
The ice is getting thin and the heat's being turned up. This Franchise is facing the possibility of missing the post-season with it's most expensive roster ever with the added gut-punch of spending more money in the off-season just to maintain the status-quo. The pieces are going to have to fall into place very quickly, very soon or Sutter and the rest of the front office are going to have a fan instigated coup d'etat on their hands.
And for good reason. The Flames are underachieving. Again. They currently languish near the bottom of the Western conference and have only 10 wins in 25 games played. They have a negative goal differential and horrible special teams. The offense has dried up in November, but the defense continues to be mediocre. The starting goalie with a fresh new extension has some of the worst stats in the league. The club is pressed close to the cap and injuries are starting to mount. The light of the post-season grows dimmer with each successive loss: in order to squeak into a play-off spot in April (with 93 points being the hypothetical cut-off point), Calgary will have to garner 70 points from their final 57 games - equivalent to a 30-17-10 record. In short, there's a lot to be unhappy about as a Flames fan right now.
I have some (what I consider to be) legitimate beefs with the manner in which Sutter has managed this roster the last couple seasons, but, to be fair to him, this group shouldn't be as bad as they are. The Kiprusoff and Regehr early season struggles can't be hung on Darryl, nor can the rotten puck-luck that's plagued the team through the first quarter. This suggests that there's nowhere to go but up for the Flames - but the question remains, how far up? Calgary needs to win at least 53% of their remain games to even have a sniff at a play-off position (a 13% increase over their current winning percentage), let alone any kind of shot at the division title (which should reasonably be a goal for this roster). That's a pretty substantial turn-around and the club has to improve in basically every aspect of play. To further complicate things, Sutter doesn't have the assets or cap space to make a big splash in the trade market: most of the pieces that would garner any interest from other teams are the only players currently making any kind of meaningful contribution on the ice.
The ice is getting thin and the heat's being turned up. This Franchise is facing the possibility of missing the post-season with it's most expensive roster ever with the added gut-punch of spending more money in the off-season just to maintain the status-quo. The pieces are going to have to fall into place very quickly, very soon or Sutter and the rest of the front office are going to have a fan instigated coup d'etat on their hands.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
The Rapture
The turn-around is on a wide arc and Calgary seems to be in the middle of the 180 degrees. They certainly seem to be trending to the good, the recent loss to the Blues notwithstanding. They've held the opposition to 23 shots or less through the last 5 games and have a +36 shot differential over that period. They've won 4 of their last 6 games overall and the PK seems to be becoming more respectable.
The scoring remains inconsistent, however, with the PP the leading culprit behind the power outage. In fact, I believe that particular special team has been a negative contributor recently thanks to the Hawks two SH goals a few games ago. On one hand, it's hard to believe that a team with Iginla, Tanguay, Huselius and Phaneuf will struggle on the man-advantage for much longer. On the other hand, who the hell knows when it comes to the Flames. Keenan has been fiddling with a couple of different configurations on the PP, specifically playing Phaneuf down low and having Tanguay on the point. Personally, I dont see much long-term utility in playing Phaneuf as a forward (although, he did assist on a rare PP goal from behind the net). If I had to guess, I'd say this is a Keenan tactic, designed to prod guys like Huselius to awaken them from their lethargy. As for Tanguay, well...that's partially due to the dearth of capable point-getting defencemen on the team and partially a strategy to get all the best producers on the ice at the same time. It hasn't done much good so far, but the theory is sound.
The Flames return to Detroit this evening and I can't honestly remember the last time they won a game there. It's been rapin' after rapin' down at the ol' Joe. Luckily, Hasek is pulling his batshit crazy routine and the Wings are on a bit of a slide. If this apparent turn-around is for real, tonight represents maybe their best opportunity to upend this pride-swallowing, soul-crushing S&M relationship they have with Wings in Detroit.
Prediction - I've been told I pick the 4-1 score too often. So let's go all the way with this one:
10-0 Flames. Jarome with the exceedingly rare double hat-trick. Alex Tanguay assists on 8 of Calgary's 10 goals and is dubbed the next "Adam Oates". Phaneuf checks Datsyuk into the 3rd row and then beats Aaron Downey into a mass of quivering flesh with his visor and purposeful stare. Anders Eriksson gets 2 points for the first time in his professional career while Craig Conroy still manages to be a minus on the night, despite Kipper pitching a shut-out. Spontaneous riots and orgies erupt in Calgary and small pockets of Toronto as delirious Flames fans celebrate the victory with wild, hedonistic abandon. The enraptured crowds roll and swell into a Boschian wave of pleasured sweat and flesh. Trumpets blare. Virgins weep. Cenubites peer at the deepening Sodom with gimlet eyes. The heavens rain whiskey and candy drops. The great celebration rises into a deafening cacophony before the earth itself opens up and swallows the whole sticky mess, submerging the revelers in a burning lake of liquid hot magma.
Go Flames.
The scoring remains inconsistent, however, with the PP the leading culprit behind the power outage. In fact, I believe that particular special team has been a negative contributor recently thanks to the Hawks two SH goals a few games ago. On one hand, it's hard to believe that a team with Iginla, Tanguay, Huselius and Phaneuf will struggle on the man-advantage for much longer. On the other hand, who the hell knows when it comes to the Flames. Keenan has been fiddling with a couple of different configurations on the PP, specifically playing Phaneuf down low and having Tanguay on the point. Personally, I dont see much long-term utility in playing Phaneuf as a forward (although, he did assist on a rare PP goal from behind the net). If I had to guess, I'd say this is a Keenan tactic, designed to prod guys like Huselius to awaken them from their lethargy. As for Tanguay, well...that's partially due to the dearth of capable point-getting defencemen on the team and partially a strategy to get all the best producers on the ice at the same time. It hasn't done much good so far, but the theory is sound.
The Flames return to Detroit this evening and I can't honestly remember the last time they won a game there. It's been rapin' after rapin' down at the ol' Joe. Luckily, Hasek is pulling his batshit crazy routine and the Wings are on a bit of a slide. If this apparent turn-around is for real, tonight represents maybe their best opportunity to upend this pride-swallowing, soul-crushing S&M relationship they have with Wings in Detroit.
Prediction - I've been told I pick the 4-1 score too often. So let's go all the way with this one:
10-0 Flames. Jarome with the exceedingly rare double hat-trick. Alex Tanguay assists on 8 of Calgary's 10 goals and is dubbed the next "Adam Oates". Phaneuf checks Datsyuk into the 3rd row and then beats Aaron Downey into a mass of quivering flesh with his visor and purposeful stare. Anders Eriksson gets 2 points for the first time in his professional career while Craig Conroy still manages to be a minus on the night, despite Kipper pitching a shut-out. Spontaneous riots and orgies erupt in Calgary and small pockets of Toronto as delirious Flames fans celebrate the victory with wild, hedonistic abandon. The enraptured crowds roll and swell into a Boschian wave of pleasured sweat and flesh. Trumpets blare. Virgins weep. Cenubites peer at the deepening Sodom with gimlet eyes. The heavens rain whiskey and candy drops. The great celebration rises into a deafening cacophony before the earth itself opens up and swallows the whole sticky mess, submerging the revelers in a burning lake of liquid hot magma.
Go Flames.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
That's the way I Like it
Real short Sunday post for those of you who couldn't watch the game yesterday...
The Flames played their best contest of the year. They looked like a qualitatively different team: sharper passing, more aggressive forecheck, faster skating everywhere on the ice. The outcome of the game was never in doubt.
Players notes:
Dustin Boyd and Eric Nystrom have added jump, speed and exuberance to the Flames bottom six. Finally the end of the roster doesn't look like a useless bag of suck whenever they hit the ice. I honestly hope Boyd sticks in the long-term.
Iginla was a dominant presence all night.
Huselius and Langkow took a few steps back into the light. Langkow scored a beauty give-and-go with Iginla and Huselius set-up Aucoin's goal with a laser-accurate seeing eye pass.
Lombardi was excellent all night. Another 2 points for the speedster, despite playing primarily on the 3rd line again.
I've picked on Conroy and Eriksson - a lot - but both had better than average games against the Avs. Cnoroy's deal clinching goal in the 3rd was an eye-popper: mainly because one doesn't expect Craig to pull the ol' toe-drag/top corner goals anymore. I still don't think he should be playing with Iginla, but he shut me up for a night at least.
The Avs bearded Goon Parker got into it with Phaneuf during the pre-game warm-up. Later in the game, when the outcome was all but decided, Parker cross-checked Phaneuf in the throat and then went to punch him while he was down. Dion wasn't injured on the play, but it was obviously dirty and dangerous. It'll be interesting to see if Parker gets anything more than his game misconduct.
Anyways, long story short - the Flames looked NOTHING like the lack luster team we've come to expect this year. The PK was good, the team defense was tight and every forward line managed to look dangerous at one time or the other during the evening. Obviously the guys need to start more skirmishes during the warm-up...
This afternoon, the Flames are in St.Louis. One would think that Curtis McElhinney will get the start, but you just never know with Keenan. As for the skaters, let's hope whatever light switch that was flipped on yesterday stays on for more than that single game.
The Flames played their best contest of the year. They looked like a qualitatively different team: sharper passing, more aggressive forecheck, faster skating everywhere on the ice. The outcome of the game was never in doubt.
Players notes:
Dustin Boyd and Eric Nystrom have added jump, speed and exuberance to the Flames bottom six. Finally the end of the roster doesn't look like a useless bag of suck whenever they hit the ice. I honestly hope Boyd sticks in the long-term.
Iginla was a dominant presence all night.
Huselius and Langkow took a few steps back into the light. Langkow scored a beauty give-and-go with Iginla and Huselius set-up Aucoin's goal with a laser-accurate seeing eye pass.
Lombardi was excellent all night. Another 2 points for the speedster, despite playing primarily on the 3rd line again.
I've picked on Conroy and Eriksson - a lot - but both had better than average games against the Avs. Cnoroy's deal clinching goal in the 3rd was an eye-popper: mainly because one doesn't expect Craig to pull the ol' toe-drag/top corner goals anymore. I still don't think he should be playing with Iginla, but he shut me up for a night at least.
The Avs bearded Goon Parker got into it with Phaneuf during the pre-game warm-up. Later in the game, when the outcome was all but decided, Parker cross-checked Phaneuf in the throat and then went to punch him while he was down. Dion wasn't injured on the play, but it was obviously dirty and dangerous. It'll be interesting to see if Parker gets anything more than his game misconduct.
Anyways, long story short - the Flames looked NOTHING like the lack luster team we've come to expect this year. The PK was good, the team defense was tight and every forward line managed to look dangerous at one time or the other during the evening. Obviously the guys need to start more skirmishes during the warm-up...
This afternoon, the Flames are in St.Louis. One would think that Curtis McElhinney will get the start, but you just never know with Keenan. As for the skaters, let's hope whatever light switch that was flipped on yesterday stays on for more than that single game.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Why Hast Thou Forsaken Us?
Vic Ferrari doing more great work over at Irreverent Oiler Fans. He's compiled goal-posts for/against numbers for all the teams through the first twenty games or so. By his count, the Flames come out as the 2nd unluckiest club behind the NYR so far. Calgary has hit 14 posts so far, while their opponents have only hit 7 (+7). It'd be interesting to combine this number with a "pucks kicked in by own defencemen" +/- figure. I guarantee that would vault the Flames into Biblical Job territory.
A lot of stuff has gone wrong for Calgary in the first 7 weeks. They haven't played great hockey, but they've also been cursed by the hockey gods a fair bit. You have to think things will start to even out eventually.
A lot of stuff has gone wrong for Calgary in the first 7 weeks. They haven't played great hockey, but they've also been cursed by the hockey gods a fair bit. You have to think things will start to even out eventually.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Stop it. Just Stop it.
No, Im not going to write about the 2 short-handed goals against that cost the Flames the game.
No, Im not going to comment on the fact that Calgary lost another game they should have won.
No, Im not going to lament the loss of Giordano when the Flames so obviously need another PP blueliner aside from Phaneuf.
But I AM going to wail about the continued presence of Conroy between Iginla and Tanguay. That combo reappeared early in the first and popped up several more times before the game ended. It is, quite simply, an indefensible strategy to have Conroy on the first line. He has absolutely no business being there. The stats show it and it's plain as day to anyone who's watched the team this year. Craig Conroy is no longer (and actually, never really was) a capable first line center, or even a reasonable facsimile of one. promote Lombardi or give Langkow another shot. But, Mr. Keenan, for the love of God and all the is good and Holy, STOP PLAYING CONROY WITH IGINLA.
No, Im not going to comment on the fact that Calgary lost another game they should have won.
No, Im not going to lament the loss of Giordano when the Flames so obviously need another PP blueliner aside from Phaneuf.
But I AM going to wail about the continued presence of Conroy between Iginla and Tanguay. That combo reappeared early in the first and popped up several more times before the game ended. It is, quite simply, an indefensible strategy to have Conroy on the first line. He has absolutely no business being there. The stats show it and it's plain as day to anyone who's watched the team this year. Craig Conroy is no longer (and actually, never really was) a capable first line center, or even a reasonable facsimile of one. promote Lombardi or give Langkow another shot. But, Mr. Keenan, for the love of God and all the is good and Holy, STOP PLAYING CONROY WITH IGINLA.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Alterations
So, after my incessant (figurative) hollering about it, Lombardi finally got a fair shake with Iginla and Tanguay last game. And the results were good. Iginla and Lombardi hooked up for the game winner in highlight reel fashion. Leading one to assume that Lombardi will start the upcoming game off as the pivot on the #1 line...
I'm actually wondering what Keenan will do with match-ups if the new trios stick. Will Iginla continue to go head to head against other big guns? What kind of opposition should Nystrom-Conroy-Nolan see? I started thinking about this because Lombardi's previously short-lived/sparodic promotions to first-line duty in the past seemed rather arbirtary on the surface. However, it made me wonder if Keenan was employing Lomabrdi with Iginla situationally, ie: against lesser competition. Iginla's goal on Tuesday night came against Clark-Sauer and Smyth-Arnason-Hejduk, which is hard to draw conclusions from given that it looks like a temporary and unruly hybrid of opposition (in the middle of a line-change perhaps?). That it wasn't against Sakic is potentially significant however, since it's typically been Sakic v. Iginla in the past as far as I could tell.
What Im getting at in a round-about sort of way is, Keenan might be thinking about running the newly formed Conroy line backed by Regehr at the tougher comp while exploiting the softer underbelly with Iginla/Lombardi/Tanguay + Phaneuf. Conroy struggled when he was trying to keep up with the big guns, but probably has it in him to play a basic "try not to let the other guy score on you" kind of game. Ditto Nolan on both counts. Nystrom may be a rookie, but he's a 25 year-old rookie who got to the show by being a PK/defensive type of winger. With Regehr finally starting to come around, the Flames might just have a shut-down line capable of minimizing the damage against while giving Iginla and co a chance to beat the crap out of the lesser lights (with Langkow and Hueslius playing against the nobodies).
I don't know if this speculation bears any resemblance to reality or not. Hell, chances are Conroy will once again be placed between Tanguay and Iginla tonight and for ever more (for some fucking unknown reason), meaning more power v. power stuff. However, should the Lombardi promotion stick, it'll be interesting to see how Keenan manages his bench.
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The surprising Blackhawks are in town tonight. You gotta admire their early season success, even if (like me) you don't think it'll last. Chicago has scored an impressive 61 GF in 20 GP, good for 3.05 GPG rate. However, only 29 of those markers have come at ES. Only NYI, MTL and NYR have less than that. Chicago's given up 38 GA 5on5, giving them an ES GD of -9. The Flames, in contrast, have 42 ES GF, and have given up 34 (+8).
Chicago's fortunes have come on the back of guys like Kane, Toews and Patrick Sharp so far. The first two are really talented kids...but they're KIDS and bound to take a step or two backwards at some point this year, while Sharp is on pace to eclipse his previous career high by about 30 points (wanna bet he doesn't keep up his 40 goal pace?). And I haven't even mentioned the 7 SH goals and 5 EN net goals that are serving to prop up their GF totals...
The Hawks certainly have some nice pieces in place. The years of being the Central's bitch has resulted in some decently high picks. Keith, Seabrook, Ruutu, Kane, Toews are gonna be excellent players in this league. But they can't carry the this roster for a full season yet. At some point, this bubbles going to burst.
Will it be tonight? Hopefully, but who knows. Predicting a Flames game has been a futile exercise so far this year. If Regehr and Kipper continue to improve (and Nolan keeps looking like he doesn't want to retire quite yet), Calgary should take this one.
NOTE - According to TSN, Dustin Boyd has been called up for this evenings match because someone on the roster (?) is suffering from the flu. He hasn't been very good on the farm this year, so expect him to see spot duty on the 4th line.
UPDATE - In direct opposition to TSN's "flu" claim, Keenan says Boyd was called up based on "merit" rather than injury concerns. Which is good, but doesn't seem to make much sense on the face of it. Boyd has some really pedestrian numbers in the AHL this year and has struggled quite a bit by all accounts. Meaning, I don't see what he's done since training camp to convince Sutter and Keenan he's earned a shot at the bigs (Im not complaining myself. I prefer Boyd to Godard, Primeau and Smith at the very least. I also thought he was the best rookie during the preseason). Whatever. Here's hoping he does enough to make Primeau (or the various players of his ilk cluttering the Flames roster) redundant.
Prediction - Flames 4, Hawks 1. Huselius, Lombardi, Phanuef and Langkow for Calgary. Lang for the Hawks.
I'm actually wondering what Keenan will do with match-ups if the new trios stick. Will Iginla continue to go head to head against other big guns? What kind of opposition should Nystrom-Conroy-Nolan see? I started thinking about this because Lombardi's previously short-lived/sparodic promotions to first-line duty in the past seemed rather arbirtary on the surface. However, it made me wonder if Keenan was employing Lomabrdi with Iginla situationally, ie: against lesser competition. Iginla's goal on Tuesday night came against Clark-Sauer and Smyth-Arnason-Hejduk, which is hard to draw conclusions from given that it looks like a temporary and unruly hybrid of opposition (in the middle of a line-change perhaps?). That it wasn't against Sakic is potentially significant however, since it's typically been Sakic v. Iginla in the past as far as I could tell.
What Im getting at in a round-about sort of way is, Keenan might be thinking about running the newly formed Conroy line backed by Regehr at the tougher comp while exploiting the softer underbelly with Iginla/Lombardi/Tanguay + Phaneuf. Conroy struggled when he was trying to keep up with the big guns, but probably has it in him to play a basic "try not to let the other guy score on you" kind of game. Ditto Nolan on both counts. Nystrom may be a rookie, but he's a 25 year-old rookie who got to the show by being a PK/defensive type of winger. With Regehr finally starting to come around, the Flames might just have a shut-down line capable of minimizing the damage against while giving Iginla and co a chance to beat the crap out of the lesser lights (with Langkow and Hueslius playing against the nobodies).
I don't know if this speculation bears any resemblance to reality or not. Hell, chances are Conroy will once again be placed between Tanguay and Iginla tonight and for ever more (for some fucking unknown reason), meaning more power v. power stuff. However, should the Lombardi promotion stick, it'll be interesting to see how Keenan manages his bench.
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The surprising Blackhawks are in town tonight. You gotta admire their early season success, even if (like me) you don't think it'll last. Chicago has scored an impressive 61 GF in 20 GP, good for 3.05 GPG rate. However, only 29 of those markers have come at ES. Only NYI, MTL and NYR have less than that. Chicago's given up 38 GA 5on5, giving them an ES GD of -9. The Flames, in contrast, have 42 ES GF, and have given up 34 (+8).
Chicago's fortunes have come on the back of guys like Kane, Toews and Patrick Sharp so far. The first two are really talented kids...but they're KIDS and bound to take a step or two backwards at some point this year, while Sharp is on pace to eclipse his previous career high by about 30 points (wanna bet he doesn't keep up his 40 goal pace?). And I haven't even mentioned the 7 SH goals and 5 EN net goals that are serving to prop up their GF totals...
The Hawks certainly have some nice pieces in place. The years of being the Central's bitch has resulted in some decently high picks. Keith, Seabrook, Ruutu, Kane, Toews are gonna be excellent players in this league. But they can't carry the this roster for a full season yet. At some point, this bubbles going to burst.
Will it be tonight? Hopefully, but who knows. Predicting a Flames game has been a futile exercise so far this year. If Regehr and Kipper continue to improve (and Nolan keeps looking like he doesn't want to retire quite yet), Calgary should take this one.
NOTE - According to TSN, Dustin Boyd has been called up for this evenings match because someone on the roster (?) is suffering from the flu. He hasn't been very good on the farm this year, so expect him to see spot duty on the 4th line.
UPDATE - In direct opposition to TSN's "flu" claim, Keenan says Boyd was called up based on "merit" rather than injury concerns. Which is good, but doesn't seem to make much sense on the face of it. Boyd has some really pedestrian numbers in the AHL this year and has struggled quite a bit by all accounts. Meaning, I don't see what he's done since training camp to convince Sutter and Keenan he's earned a shot at the bigs (Im not complaining myself. I prefer Boyd to Godard, Primeau and Smith at the very least. I also thought he was the best rookie during the preseason). Whatever. Here's hoping he does enough to make Primeau (or the various players of his ilk cluttering the Flames roster) redundant.
Prediction - Flames 4, Hawks 1. Huselius, Lombardi, Phanuef and Langkow for Calgary. Lang for the Hawks.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The Pitter-Patter of Patting One's Own Back
No, this isn't an "I told you so!" re: Lombardi on Iginla's line. It's a self-congratulation for coining a term that made it into the Battle of Alberta's "Terms of Battle".
Yup, that's right. In the words of Ron Burgundy, I'm kind of a big deal.
Yup, that's right. In the words of Ron Burgundy, I'm kind of a big deal.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Flames vs Avs Pregame
Colorado has slowly replaced the Predators as the Calgary's uber-nemesis. They beat the Flames up down the stretch last year to make the sprint for the final play-off spot interesting, and they've won 3 straight over us to start this season. Calgary SHOULD have won two of those three games...unfortunately "almosts" don't count for much.
The good news is Sakic (the primary engineer behind the Flames misfortunes) and the Avs are slumping. Burnaby Joe has one goal in his last 13 games. Colorado has scored one goal and given up 10 in their last two games (6-0 L to Dallas, 4-1 L to Minnesota). In addition, they're a pretty bad road team (2-6-1).
The bad news is, the Flames have been pretty bad themselves recently. Also, Mark Smith will be in for the Linden-concussed Marcus Nilson tonight, making the 4th line an even bigger bag of suck than it was to begin with. Who wants to bet both Smith and Godard see > 5 minutes of ice this evening?
Matt thinks recently recalled Curtis McElhinney will be in net tonight, but Im a "I'll believe it when I see it" kinda guy on that front. I get the feeling Keenan's going to play Kipper until he either regains his form on a consistent basis or drops dead from exhaustion...
Prediction - Iginla hasn't scored for awhile so I think tonight is his night to get a couple. Conversely I assume Sakic will continue to slump, because that sure would be nice. Calgary 3, Colorado 1. Iggy (2) and Langkow for the Flames. Guite for the Avs.
The good news is Sakic (the primary engineer behind the Flames misfortunes) and the Avs are slumping. Burnaby Joe has one goal in his last 13 games. Colorado has scored one goal and given up 10 in their last two games (6-0 L to Dallas, 4-1 L to Minnesota). In addition, they're a pretty bad road team (2-6-1).
The bad news is, the Flames have been pretty bad themselves recently. Also, Mark Smith will be in for the Linden-concussed Marcus Nilson tonight, making the 4th line an even bigger bag of suck than it was to begin with. Who wants to bet both Smith and Godard see > 5 minutes of ice this evening?
Matt thinks recently recalled Curtis McElhinney will be in net tonight, but Im a "I'll believe it when I see it" kinda guy on that front. I get the feeling Keenan's going to play Kipper until he either regains his form on a consistent basis or drops dead from exhaustion...
Prediction - Iginla hasn't scored for awhile so I think tonight is his night to get a couple. Conversely I assume Sakic will continue to slump, because that sure would be nice. Calgary 3, Colorado 1. Iggy (2) and Langkow for the Flames. Guite for the Avs.
Condemnation Aplenty
It's pouring in from all sides now. TSN ranked the Flames 30th in the league in their "power rankings" recently. ESPN had a brief "blame Keenan" blurb on their site the other day. And now that we're at the 1/4 mark, other more in-depth indictments of the underachieving Flames are coming out of the woodwork.
Bruce Dowbiggen, who has forever favored a doom and gloom perspective when it comes to the Flames, chooses to eschew skewering Keenan and instead points the finger at Darryl Sutter's handiwork:
In particular, the evolution of Sutter's defence begs the question of whether the former coach has been paying attention to the workings of the new NHL. The model NHL defenceman of the no-obstruction era is predicated on speed. That is, a player who can skate well or, if his skating is less than perfect, a player who can pass the puck well enough to key a speedy breakout from the defensive zone...
So how do the Flames rate? They have the dynamic but erratic Dion Phaneuf and a fine defensive defenceman in Robyn Regehr.
After that, mobility and puck moving falls off drastically.
Adrian Aucoin, Rhett Warrener, Cory Sarich, David Hale and Anders Eriksson are neither particularly quick nor very good passers. Follow a Flames game and watch the trouble they have escaping the defensive zone. Scouts are advising opposing teams to pressure the Flames' defence to create turnovers.
I hasten to add that Regehr, with all his defensive acumen, is hardly a puck mover himself. The Flames are very obviously a bad transition team. They have a lot of trouble moving the puck out of their own zone and/or hitting the forwards in stride with a pass in the neutral zone.
Coming from Bruce, it's not a bad article. He highlights many of issues I've brought up around here: Sutter's "tried and true vet" strategy is inefficient from a cap perspective and has burdened the roster with expensive, sunset contracts, making it that much more difficult to instigate any sort of adaptations in light of the teams struggles. Dowbiggen overstates his case a tad by ignoring or reducing the effect that Regehr's and Kipper's struggles have had on Calgary's record, but that doesn't mean his argument is without merit.
Scotty Bowman was recently interviewed by Tony Gallagher, and he re-iterates Dowbiggen's claims regarding the Flames back-end:
"Ottawa has a surprisingly good defence, they're underrated. Those guys move the puck pretty (well) on the power play. They're the new style defencemen, I call them.
"The big guy who can't move the puck is useless now because he can't grab or push guys.
"Look at Calgary. Their defence, they're not that good and I think Mike [Keenan] has got those guys paired wrong. He's playing [Dion] Phaneuf with [Adrian] Aucoin. He had Aucoin in Vancouver and he had a great year for him but that was a long time ago. He's not that good anymore. I'd play [Robyn] Regehr with Phaneuf."
Im not sure I agree with him on the Regehr/Phaneuf stuff, but, when Scotty Bowman calls out your blueline as "not very good", it's time to sit up and take notice. The sad part is, the Flames have nowhere to go with this group in the near future: Aucoin, Eriksson and Warrener are all signed though next season (at least). Dion Phaneuf is on the verge of getting a massive raise and Robyn Regehr's cap-hit doubles starting next year when his extension kicks in. Calgary's back-end is poised to get one year older, one year slower (for guys like Warrener, Eriksson and Aucoin) and about 7M more expensive. That means a 21M back-end - approx 35-40% of the cap, depending - on a group of 7 players that "isn't very good".
Tough times ahead. And Im not just talking about the Flames chances of success in 07/08.
Bruce Dowbiggen, who has forever favored a doom and gloom perspective when it comes to the Flames, chooses to eschew skewering Keenan and instead points the finger at Darryl Sutter's handiwork:
In particular, the evolution of Sutter's defence begs the question of whether the former coach has been paying attention to the workings of the new NHL. The model NHL defenceman of the no-obstruction era is predicated on speed. That is, a player who can skate well or, if his skating is less than perfect, a player who can pass the puck well enough to key a speedy breakout from the defensive zone...
So how do the Flames rate? They have the dynamic but erratic Dion Phaneuf and a fine defensive defenceman in Robyn Regehr.
After that, mobility and puck moving falls off drastically.
Adrian Aucoin, Rhett Warrener, Cory Sarich, David Hale and Anders Eriksson are neither particularly quick nor very good passers. Follow a Flames game and watch the trouble they have escaping the defensive zone. Scouts are advising opposing teams to pressure the Flames' defence to create turnovers.
I hasten to add that Regehr, with all his defensive acumen, is hardly a puck mover himself. The Flames are very obviously a bad transition team. They have a lot of trouble moving the puck out of their own zone and/or hitting the forwards in stride with a pass in the neutral zone.
Coming from Bruce, it's not a bad article. He highlights many of issues I've brought up around here: Sutter's "tried and true vet" strategy is inefficient from a cap perspective and has burdened the roster with expensive, sunset contracts, making it that much more difficult to instigate any sort of adaptations in light of the teams struggles. Dowbiggen overstates his case a tad by ignoring or reducing the effect that Regehr's and Kipper's struggles have had on Calgary's record, but that doesn't mean his argument is without merit.
Scotty Bowman was recently interviewed by Tony Gallagher, and he re-iterates Dowbiggen's claims regarding the Flames back-end:
"Ottawa has a surprisingly good defence, they're underrated. Those guys move the puck pretty (well) on the power play. They're the new style defencemen, I call them.
"The big guy who can't move the puck is useless now because he can't grab or push guys.
"Look at Calgary. Their defence, they're not that good and I think Mike [Keenan] has got those guys paired wrong. He's playing [Dion] Phaneuf with [Adrian] Aucoin. He had Aucoin in Vancouver and he had a great year for him but that was a long time ago. He's not that good anymore. I'd play [Robyn] Regehr with Phaneuf."
Im not sure I agree with him on the Regehr/Phaneuf stuff, but, when Scotty Bowman calls out your blueline as "not very good", it's time to sit up and take notice. The sad part is, the Flames have nowhere to go with this group in the near future: Aucoin, Eriksson and Warrener are all signed though next season (at least). Dion Phaneuf is on the verge of getting a massive raise and Robyn Regehr's cap-hit doubles starting next year when his extension kicks in. Calgary's back-end is poised to get one year older, one year slower (for guys like Warrener, Eriksson and Aucoin) and about 7M more expensive. That means a 21M back-end - approx 35-40% of the cap, depending - on a group of 7 players that "isn't very good".
Tough times ahead. And Im not just talking about the Flames chances of success in 07/08.
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Quarter Pole
We're twenty games in, meaning it's time to take stock of the Flames season so far.
record: 8-9-3
GF: 59
GA: 63
PP: 15.8% (17th)
PK: 75.2% (29th)
It's hard not to be disgusted and depressed by these numbers. The Flames have one more win and have allowed one less goal against than the Edmonton Oilers. That's the Edmonton Oilers, probably the worst team in the league, beset by injuries to their already suspect blueline. Calgary is one game below .500 and have a negative GD (-4) through 20 games. The special teams have been either mediocre (PP) or terrible (PK). Qualitatively, the Flames have struggled to establish any sort of consistency, frequently bouncing between excellent (5-3 win over Minnesota) or putrid (4-1 loss to San Jose). They've managed to lose a lot of games to divisional opponents so far this season by either blowing giant leads (5-4 loss to the Avs) or despite boasting a far superior roster (4-1 loss to injury-riddled Vancouver).
These are all the hallmarks of a bad team. Pitiable special teams, a negative GD and an uncanny knack of losing games. It's been a frustrating, messy start to the season and marks probably the worst opening quarter since Sutter took over. Im sure the disconnect between the club's performance and it's cumulative player salary is not lost on the Franchises owners (or Sutter himself).
So what have been the problems so far?
Miikka Kiprusoff
I can't remember a worse 20 game stretch for Kipper in Flames silks. His .881 SV% has him in the leagues basement in terms of starters. Much maligned Peter Budaj and MA Fleury have superior numbers. Andrew Freaking Raycroft is up around .887. That is terrible company for a 3 time Vezina candidate to keep.
To be fair, Miikka's been a victim of circumstance to some extent. A lot of pucks have bounced in off his own players so far, and the defensive zone coverage in front of him has been suspect, at best. However, the blame can't completely heaped upon the skater's shoulders. Kipper has allowed more than few suspect goals in the first 20. Isbister's marker in the 4-1 loss last night was a prime example: a floating golf shot from just inside the blueline. No NHL goalie should be letting that get past them, let alone a guy of Kiprusoff's caliber. He wasn't even in the right half of the net to stop the puck...in fact, he looked rather stunned that a rubber biscuit was flying at him at all (as if Scott Bakula's consciousness had quantum lept into his body and was surprised to find he was dressed in heavy equipment and standing on a sheet of ice in front 18,000 people).
There seemed to be signs that Kipper was awakening from his funk recently, but, like the rest of the team, every step forward seems to be answered by one or two steps back. If the Flames are to pull out of this nosedive, they're going to need Kipper to get his shit together. And fast.
Snake-Eyes
Back in July, I wrote a post about the various gambles Sutter was taking with this roster going into the season. The list was, in short:
1.) Adrian Aucoin - Top 4 defender?
2.) Owen Nolan - Still able to contribute?
3.) Lombardi - Top 6 forward?
4.) Huselius - Repeat performance?
5.) Yelle/Nilson - bounce back season(s)?
...as you can see, the roster isn't without its coin flips. If a couple (particularly the BIG ones like Aucoin and Nolan) land on heads, the team will roll along fine. On the other hand, should Sutter come up snake eyes on most of his big gambles, it's unlikely the Flames will experience any large measure of success.
So far, the big gambles are looking like bad bets. I'm willing to admit that Aucoin hasn't been terrible, overall, though he tends to vary from adequate to dreadful, depending on the game. He was one of the worst players on the ice the first couple of weeks, but has managed to right the ship somewhat in recent times. To my eye, he benefits a lot from playing with Phanuef and Iginla and would probably be sunk if forced to play on another pairing. If he stays healthy, his acquisition won't prove to be overly crippling (he's better than Zyuzin afterall), but I still don't like his pricetag, or the fact his 4M will be on the books next season.
Of course, Nolan is another matter. Excepting, perhaps, a couple of games here and there, Buster's been a bust.
Sutter has liked Nolan since coaching him in San Jose. He tried to get him at the deadline last February, but Nolan asked the Coyotes Franchise not to be traded due to some family issues.
The danger here might be the clouding of what Nolan is with what he used to be. The former #1 draft pick has twice scored 40+ goals, and 7 times topped the 20 goal mark. However, age and injuries have slowed Nolan considerably over the years. He took the lock-out and the entire 05/06 season off to rest his ailing knees. The 76 games he played last year represented the most he'd managed in a single season since 2000.
As a result, Nolan hasn't been an offensive force for nearly a decade. His last 40 goal year was in that same 99/00 season, when he played 78 contests. Since then, his totals have steadily declined: 24 goals, 23 goals, 22, 7 (in just 14 games), 19 and 16 from 01 to 07, respectively...
If Nolan succumbs to age and either doesn't play much or well, the Flames will have a big gaping hole on the right side of their roster (again).
Was my common-sense prophecy back in the summer. And, lo and behold, the Flames once again have David Moss as a 2nd line Rwer while another aging vet vainly tries to keep his head above water in the bottom 6.
If you ignore his lone good performance against the Oilers, Nolan has pretty much stunk this season. His production rates are laughable and his GF/60 rate is a pedestrian 2.40 (despite spending a lot of time with Langkow and Huselius to start the year). As it stands, his 6 points in 20 games projects to a 8 goal, 24 point season. To put that into perspective, Even Amonte managed 10 goals and 30 points last year.
Another gamble coming up snake-eyes for Daryl is the retaining of Yelle and Nilson (and Primeau and Godard and Smith). The so-called "4th liners" have been detriments for the Flames. Yelle has become very Friesen-like: okay on the PK, but so utterly useless otherwise that it completely out-weighs his "okayness" short-handed. The former defensive specialists game has really, really tailed off the last few years and it looks like he's about ready to be put out to pasture. Guys like Nilson and Primeau, on the other hand, have forever been fringe NHLers and are the type of guys you MIGHT sign in February for a play-off run because your rookie has tailed off or you're team has injury concerns. Altogether, Primeau, Nilson, Yelle and Smith have played 57 games so far, produced 4 points total (1 goal) and are a cumulative -3. The cap-hit for their combined salaries is 4.288M. Nilson and Primeau's contracts extend beyond this year. Not good.
Fat-Headed
On that note, it would be negligent of me not to re-iterate the top-heavy-ness of this roster.
Observe:
Raw stats in front, production rates in back. As you can see, Iginla, Tanguay, Langkow and Lombardi are getting the job done at ES, while Huselius, Langkow and Tanguay are carrying the mail on the PP.
Juice, Conroy, Nolan and Moss have been disappointments at ES while Iginla and Phaneuf should certainly be better 5on4. Nolan and Conroy's rates are complete garbage considering their positions in the line-up, while, as mentioned, the Flames collection of tertiary forwards are complete non-entities offense-wise (whatever the circumstance). Anders Eriksson's PP production looks gawdy, but is an effect of a tiny sample size. Matthew Lombardi's ESP efficiency is particularly notable given the rates of his typical linemates (Nystrom, Moss, Nolan, Nilson).
Going forward, the Flames will need Phaneuf and Iginla to be better on the PP and should probably up Lombardi's TOI (his PP rate is crappy, but that has a lot to do with this nominal 5on4 ice-time and teammates). Swapping Nolan for Moss on Langkow's unit seems the right thing to do, although the difference between their ES rates is almost insignificant (although it was probably larger before Nolans 2 point outburst versus the Oil). Conroy's ES efficacy isn't even as good as Eric Nystrom's so far, and he's spent a bunch of time between the two best producers on the team. How's that for a resounding indictment?
Iginla and a couple others are carrying this club in Atlasian fashion, particularly 5on5. An injury or an extended cold stretch by Tanguay or Jarome is exceedingly bad news for the Flames, particularly since I can't foresee a big rebound by the likes of Yelle, Nilson, Primeau, Smith, Godard, Conroy or Nolan. Moss should be a bit better than he has been, though I think his rates suit a player of his skill-set and caliber. Ditto with Nystrom, who has been som
ewhat of a pleasant surprise given his early exit from the pre-season in September (it goes to show that the Flames probably have a couple of replacement level kids on the farm that are being held back by guys like Nilson and Yelle).
The Flames grasp on capable offensive production is a tenuous one. They're a teetering fat head on a thin neck waiting to be blown over by a stiff breeze. If the heavy lifters stop being anything but elite, or if the bottom half of the roster can't get it's act together, Calgary's GD might well sink further into the red.
Defense
The Flames zone has been a bit of a chaos realm during the first 20. Initially, guys like Aucoin and Eriksson were doing their best Andrei Zyuzin impressions. Robyn Regehr struggled through a majority of first 6 weeks. Hale is what he is - a fringe NHLer. Kipper's issues have been documented above. The PK has personnel and systemic weaknesses. Only Phaneuf, Sarich and, perhaps, Warrener have consistently delivered as promised on the back-end so far.
From Behind the net, here's each blueliners GA/60 rates (ES), Quality of Comp and GA/60 (SH):
Phaneuf - 2.01, 0.06, 13.18
Regehr - 2.49, 0.02, 8.65
Aucoin - 2.33, 0.03, 11.99
Sarich - 2.04, 0.04, 8.86
Eriksson - 2.89, 0.00, 6.18
Warrener - 2.32, -0.16, 4.27
Hale - 2.03, -0.17, 0.00
Phaneuf is good at ES, but still terrible at killing penalties. Aucoin isn't that good in either situation. Regehr and Sarich's PK GA rates are also way too high for a couple of guys who are supposed to "specialize" in that sort of thing. Also, the fact that Reggie has the second highest GA rate at ES, even though he isn't facing the toughest competition, is really indicative of his lackluster play so far. This is especially pronounced when you look at his negative corsi* number (-3.3). The only other guys in the red by this measure on the team are Eric Godard (-5.0), Stephane Yelle (-0.8), Wayne Primeau (-11.9), Mark Smith (-5.4) and Eric Nystrom (-2.2). In short, not good company for Regehr to be keeping. His fellow blueliners all have fairly decent corsi numbers by comparison:
Phanuef +11.0
Warrener +10.0
Eriksson +6.1
Hale +7.4
Aucoin +7.0
Sarich +3.3
*(if you have no idea what "corsi" is, check out this post.)
Yup. The PK is brutal almost across the board (except for Warrener, curiously) and the Flames previously elite shut-down defenseman has been bad by just about every measure you can find. These stats will likely improve when Kipper finds himself, but, and not incidentally, Kippers numbers will probably improve once Regehr gets his shit together. It's a bit of chicken and egg sort of thing.
Are the Flames doing anything well?
Not really. One can point to some individual performances (Iginla, Tanguay, Lombardi, Langkow, Phaneuf), but Calgary doesn't seem to be excelling at much in terms global, team-wide metrics. They are tending to out-shoot their opponents, though not by any great degree. Probably the most encouraging stat is the 39 GF at ES, good for 4th best in the league (Thank you Jarome). The Flames are actually +6 in terms of ES GD, which indicates a potential upswing in fortunes if the PP and PK ever become half-way respectable. The problem being, I was saying stuff like that about the road record and the PK last year, with expectations that they would improve and they never did...
And so...
One might imagine Jim Playfair secretly chuckling to himself at night these days, no doubt feeling personally vindicated by the fact that the team has looked no better under Keenan in the first 20 than it did under Nervous Jimmy during the final 20 last season. I still dislike how Playfair handled the team and I like a lot of Keenan's bench-management. However, there needs to be some kind of marked improvement in this club very quickly or Keenan won't be immune to criticism for much longer. The roster has some issues and some difference-makers have under-delivered. As such, the Flames have dug themselves an ugly hole through the initial quarter of the year and it's going to take a mighty turn-around to dig themselves back out of it.
Update - Matt has his "Flames Thru 20" post up. Of course, it's better and more succinct than mine.
record: 8-9-3
GF: 59
GA: 63
PP: 15.8% (17th)
PK: 75.2% (29th)
It's hard not to be disgusted and depressed by these numbers. The Flames have one more win and have allowed one less goal against than the Edmonton Oilers. That's the Edmonton Oilers, probably the worst team in the league, beset by injuries to their already suspect blueline. Calgary is one game below .500 and have a negative GD (-4) through 20 games. The special teams have been either mediocre (PP) or terrible (PK). Qualitatively, the Flames have struggled to establish any sort of consistency, frequently bouncing between excellent (5-3 win over Minnesota) or putrid (4-1 loss to San Jose). They've managed to lose a lot of games to divisional opponents so far this season by either blowing giant leads (5-4 loss to the Avs) or despite boasting a far superior roster (4-1 loss to injury-riddled Vancouver).
These are all the hallmarks of a bad team. Pitiable special teams, a negative GD and an uncanny knack of losing games. It's been a frustrating, messy start to the season and marks probably the worst opening quarter since Sutter took over. Im sure the disconnect between the club's performance and it's cumulative player salary is not lost on the Franchises owners (or Sutter himself).
So what have been the problems so far?
Miikka Kiprusoff
I can't remember a worse 20 game stretch for Kipper in Flames silks. His .881 SV% has him in the leagues basement in terms of starters. Much maligned Peter Budaj and MA Fleury have superior numbers. Andrew Freaking Raycroft is up around .887. That is terrible company for a 3 time Vezina candidate to keep.
To be fair, Miikka's been a victim of circumstance to some extent. A lot of pucks have bounced in off his own players so far, and the defensive zone coverage in front of him has been suspect, at best. However, the blame can't completely heaped upon the skater's shoulders. Kipper has allowed more than few suspect goals in the first 20. Isbister's marker in the 4-1 loss last night was a prime example: a floating golf shot from just inside the blueline. No NHL goalie should be letting that get past them, let alone a guy of Kiprusoff's caliber. He wasn't even in the right half of the net to stop the puck...in fact, he looked rather stunned that a rubber biscuit was flying at him at all (as if Scott Bakula's consciousness had quantum lept into his body and was surprised to find he was dressed in heavy equipment and standing on a sheet of ice in front 18,000 people).
There seemed to be signs that Kipper was awakening from his funk recently, but, like the rest of the team, every step forward seems to be answered by one or two steps back. If the Flames are to pull out of this nosedive, they're going to need Kipper to get his shit together. And fast.
Snake-Eyes
Back in July, I wrote a post about the various gambles Sutter was taking with this roster going into the season. The list was, in short:
1.) Adrian Aucoin - Top 4 defender?
2.) Owen Nolan - Still able to contribute?
3.) Lombardi - Top 6 forward?
4.) Huselius - Repeat performance?
5.) Yelle/Nilson - bounce back season(s)?
...as you can see, the roster isn't without its coin flips. If a couple (particularly the BIG ones like Aucoin and Nolan) land on heads, the team will roll along fine. On the other hand, should Sutter come up snake eyes on most of his big gambles, it's unlikely the Flames will experience any large measure of success.
So far, the big gambles are looking like bad bets. I'm willing to admit that Aucoin hasn't been terrible, overall, though he tends to vary from adequate to dreadful, depending on the game. He was one of the worst players on the ice the first couple of weeks, but has managed to right the ship somewhat in recent times. To my eye, he benefits a lot from playing with Phanuef and Iginla and would probably be sunk if forced to play on another pairing. If he stays healthy, his acquisition won't prove to be overly crippling (he's better than Zyuzin afterall), but I still don't like his pricetag, or the fact his 4M will be on the books next season.
Of course, Nolan is another matter. Excepting, perhaps, a couple of games here and there, Buster's been a bust.
Sutter has liked Nolan since coaching him in San Jose. He tried to get him at the deadline last February, but Nolan asked the Coyotes Franchise not to be traded due to some family issues.
The danger here might be the clouding of what Nolan is with what he used to be. The former #1 draft pick has twice scored 40+ goals, and 7 times topped the 20 goal mark. However, age and injuries have slowed Nolan considerably over the years. He took the lock-out and the entire 05/06 season off to rest his ailing knees. The 76 games he played last year represented the most he'd managed in a single season since 2000.
As a result, Nolan hasn't been an offensive force for nearly a decade. His last 40 goal year was in that same 99/00 season, when he played 78 contests. Since then, his totals have steadily declined: 24 goals, 23 goals, 22, 7 (in just 14 games), 19 and 16 from 01 to 07, respectively...
If Nolan succumbs to age and either doesn't play much or well, the Flames will have a big gaping hole on the right side of their roster (again).
Was my common-sense prophecy back in the summer. And, lo and behold, the Flames once again have David Moss as a 2nd line Rwer while another aging vet vainly tries to keep his head above water in the bottom 6.
If you ignore his lone good performance against the Oilers, Nolan has pretty much stunk this season. His production rates are laughable and his GF/60 rate is a pedestrian 2.40 (despite spending a lot of time with Langkow and Huselius to start the year). As it stands, his 6 points in 20 games projects to a 8 goal, 24 point season. To put that into perspective, Even Amonte managed 10 goals and 30 points last year.
Another gamble coming up snake-eyes for Daryl is the retaining of Yelle and Nilson (and Primeau and Godard and Smith). The so-called "4th liners" have been detriments for the Flames. Yelle has become very Friesen-like: okay on the PK, but so utterly useless otherwise that it completely out-weighs his "okayness" short-handed. The former defensive specialists game has really, really tailed off the last few years and it looks like he's about ready to be put out to pasture. Guys like Nilson and Primeau, on the other hand, have forever been fringe NHLers and are the type of guys you MIGHT sign in February for a play-off run because your rookie has tailed off or you're team has injury concerns. Altogether, Primeau, Nilson, Yelle and Smith have played 57 games so far, produced 4 points total (1 goal) and are a cumulative -3. The cap-hit for their combined salaries is 4.288M. Nilson and Primeau's contracts extend beyond this year. Not good.
Fat-Headed
On that note, it would be negligent of me not to re-iterate the top-heavy-ness of this roster.
Observe:
Raw stats in front, production rates in back. As you can see, Iginla, Tanguay, Langkow and Lombardi are getting the job done at ES, while Huselius, Langkow and Tanguay are carrying the mail on the PP.
Juice, Conroy, Nolan and Moss have been disappointments at ES while Iginla and Phaneuf should certainly be better 5on4. Nolan and Conroy's rates are complete garbage considering their positions in the line-up, while, as mentioned, the Flames collection of tertiary forwards are complete non-entities offense-wise (whatever the circumstance). Anders Eriksson's PP production looks gawdy, but is an effect of a tiny sample size. Matthew Lombardi's ESP efficiency is particularly notable given the rates of his typical linemates (Nystrom, Moss, Nolan, Nilson).
Going forward, the Flames will need Phaneuf and Iginla to be better on the PP and should probably up Lombardi's TOI (his PP rate is crappy, but that has a lot to do with this nominal 5on4 ice-time and teammates). Swapping Nolan for Moss on Langkow's unit seems the right thing to do, although the difference between their ES rates is almost insignificant (although it was probably larger before Nolans 2 point outburst versus the Oil). Conroy's ES efficacy isn't even as good as Eric Nystrom's so far, and he's spent a bunch of time between the two best producers on the team. How's that for a resounding indictment?
Iginla and a couple others are carrying this club in Atlasian fashion, particularly 5on5. An injury or an extended cold stretch by Tanguay or Jarome is exceedingly bad news for the Flames, particularly since I can't foresee a big rebound by the likes of Yelle, Nilson, Primeau, Smith, Godard, Conroy or Nolan. Moss should be a bit better than he has been, though I think his rates suit a player of his skill-set and caliber. Ditto with Nystrom, who has been som
ewhat of a pleasant surprise given his early exit from the pre-season in September (it goes to show that the Flames probably have a couple of replacement level kids on the farm that are being held back by guys like Nilson and Yelle).The Flames grasp on capable offensive production is a tenuous one. They're a teetering fat head on a thin neck waiting to be blown over by a stiff breeze. If the heavy lifters stop being anything but elite, or if the bottom half of the roster can't get it's act together, Calgary's GD might well sink further into the red.
Defense
The Flames zone has been a bit of a chaos realm during the first 20. Initially, guys like Aucoin and Eriksson were doing their best Andrei Zyuzin impressions. Robyn Regehr struggled through a majority of first 6 weeks. Hale is what he is - a fringe NHLer. Kipper's issues have been documented above. The PK has personnel and systemic weaknesses. Only Phaneuf, Sarich and, perhaps, Warrener have consistently delivered as promised on the back-end so far.
From Behind the net, here's each blueliners GA/60 rates (ES), Quality of Comp and GA/60 (SH):
Phaneuf - 2.01, 0.06, 13.18
Regehr - 2.49, 0.02, 8.65
Aucoin - 2.33, 0.03, 11.99
Sarich - 2.04, 0.04, 8.86
Eriksson - 2.89, 0.00, 6.18
Warrener - 2.32, -0.16, 4.27
Hale - 2.03, -0.17, 0.00
Phaneuf is good at ES, but still terrible at killing penalties. Aucoin isn't that good in either situation. Regehr and Sarich's PK GA rates are also way too high for a couple of guys who are supposed to "specialize" in that sort of thing. Also, the fact that Reggie has the second highest GA rate at ES, even though he isn't facing the toughest competition, is really indicative of his lackluster play so far. This is especially pronounced when you look at his negative corsi* number (-3.3). The only other guys in the red by this measure on the team are Eric Godard (-5.0), Stephane Yelle (-0.8), Wayne Primeau (-11.9), Mark Smith (-5.4) and Eric Nystrom (-2.2). In short, not good company for Regehr to be keeping. His fellow blueliners all have fairly decent corsi numbers by comparison:
Phanuef +11.0
Warrener +10.0
Eriksson +6.1
Hale +7.4
Aucoin +7.0
Sarich +3.3
*(if you have no idea what "corsi" is, check out this post.)
Yup. The PK is brutal almost across the board (except for Warrener, curiously) and the Flames previously elite shut-down defenseman has been bad by just about every measure you can find. These stats will likely improve when Kipper finds himself, but, and not incidentally, Kippers numbers will probably improve once Regehr gets his shit together. It's a bit of chicken and egg sort of thing.
Are the Flames doing anything well?
Not really. One can point to some individual performances (Iginla, Tanguay, Lombardi, Langkow, Phaneuf), but Calgary doesn't seem to be excelling at much in terms global, team-wide metrics. They are tending to out-shoot their opponents, though not by any great degree. Probably the most encouraging stat is the 39 GF at ES, good for 4th best in the league (Thank you Jarome). The Flames are actually +6 in terms of ES GD, which indicates a potential upswing in fortunes if the PP and PK ever become half-way respectable. The problem being, I was saying stuff like that about the road record and the PK last year, with expectations that they would improve and they never did...
And so...
One might imagine Jim Playfair secretly chuckling to himself at night these days, no doubt feeling personally vindicated by the fact that the team has looked no better under Keenan in the first 20 than it did under Nervous Jimmy during the final 20 last season. I still dislike how Playfair handled the team and I like a lot of Keenan's bench-management. However, there needs to be some kind of marked improvement in this club very quickly or Keenan won't be immune to criticism for much longer. The roster has some issues and some difference-makers have under-delivered. As such, the Flames have dug themselves an ugly hole through the initial quarter of the year and it's going to take a mighty turn-around to dig themselves back out of it.
Update - Matt has his "Flames Thru 20" post up. Of course, it's better and more succinct than mine.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
MMMM. Crow.
The Flames did everything in their power to prove, finally and definitively, that I have no idea what Im talking about. Not only did the Lombo promotion I was pimping yesterday not happen, my two favorite punching bags (Nolan and Conroy) contributed to all 3 goals in the 3-1 win over the Greasers last night. Just to top it all off, Eriksson didn't look terrible for the 3rd straight game.
When it comes to this stuff, I'm glad to be proven wrong. If Nolan continues to produce, Conroy kicks it up to a PPG pace and Eriksson positions himself as a Norris finalist, I'll eat my humble pie with a smile on my face.
In my defense, though, I'd like to point out that the Oilers are really a bad hockey team. Projecting future multiple point games for Nolan based on last night is problematic because, well, almost every club in the NHL is better than Edmonton. In many cases, much, much better. I was pleased as punch to see Nolan contribute last night, but he won't be let out of my doghouse (Conroy either) until he does it a couple more times, preferably against at least middling opposition.
That said, it really looks like Nolan and Lomabardi got some chemistry going with Nystrom, meaning a probable delay in Lombo's ever deferred promotion into the top 6 (as pointed out by the anonymous commenter in the pre-game post). We'll see if it lasts or not.
Anyways, good bounces, decent 60 minutes, etc. Quick turnaround today as the Flames play the Canucks in Vancouver in a couple of hours. The Orcas have been a pretty bad home team so far this year for some reason, so that's potential for hope. On the other hand, does today mark the debut of [insert rookie back-up here]...?
Doubtful. Kipper looks to be rounding into form and it's not like he was exactly busy last night (16 SA). The Flames also need these points desperately. All signs point to another Kipper/Luongo duel.
Prediction - Flames 3, Canucks 2. Iginla, Langkow and Phaneuf for Calgary. Sedin (doesn't matter which) and Pyatt for Vancouver.
When it comes to this stuff, I'm glad to be proven wrong. If Nolan continues to produce, Conroy kicks it up to a PPG pace and Eriksson positions himself as a Norris finalist, I'll eat my humble pie with a smile on my face.
In my defense, though, I'd like to point out that the Oilers are really a bad hockey team. Projecting future multiple point games for Nolan based on last night is problematic because, well, almost every club in the NHL is better than Edmonton. In many cases, much, much better. I was pleased as punch to see Nolan contribute last night, but he won't be let out of my doghouse (Conroy either) until he does it a couple more times, preferably against at least middling opposition.
That said, it really looks like Nolan and Lomabardi got some chemistry going with Nystrom, meaning a probable delay in Lombo's ever deferred promotion into the top 6 (as pointed out by the anonymous commenter in the pre-game post). We'll see if it lasts or not.
Anyways, good bounces, decent 60 minutes, etc. Quick turnaround today as the Flames play the Canucks in Vancouver in a couple of hours. The Orcas have been a pretty bad home team so far this year for some reason, so that's potential for hope. On the other hand, does today mark the debut of [insert rookie back-up here]...?
Doubtful. Kipper looks to be rounding into form and it's not like he was exactly busy last night (16 SA). The Flames also need these points desperately. All signs point to another Kipper/Luongo duel.
Prediction - Flames 3, Canucks 2. Iginla, Langkow and Phaneuf for Calgary. Sedin (doesn't matter which) and Pyatt for Vancouver.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Battle of Alberta Part 3
A few notes before this evening's Clash of the Kittens...
I was picking on Conroy again a couple of posts ago and noted that "it's only a matter of time now before we see Lombo as a permanent fixture among the top 6".
Voila.
According to recent practice lines and Keenan in the linked article, Lombardi will be starting the night out between Iginla and Tanguay, while Conroy will be moved down with Nolan and Nystrom. Now those are lines I can get behind. Sure, the Conroy trio probably won't score much, but they also won't be detrimental, especially if they're matched up against other 3rd or 4th lines. Heck, it might even give them a chance bust out of their slumps if they're played against softer competition.
In the above piece, Conroy mentions a psychological factor he claims was contributing to his struggles which I hadn't considered before:
Conroy admitted he was deferring the puck to Iginla and Tanguay too much because they were having more success.
"You know, when you miss a good chance with those two, you get upset. With Buster and I both struggling, neither is gonna feel worse, 'That guy's doing no better than me,' " Conroy said.
**(Side note - did anyone else know that Nolan's nickname was "Buster"?)
Lombardi can do himself and the team a world of good by taking advantage of his opportunity tonight. He won't be seeing the toughest competition, given he's playing the Oilers, so he has every reason to succeed. His emergence would solidify the top unit and make Keenan's power v. power strategy a little less of a gamble against elite competition going forward. It would also mark an important step-forward for Lombardi's career and the organization as a whole since the Flames desperately need him to continue to develop into a top 6 player and out-perform his contract over the next 3 seasons. Given the impending budget crunch, Calgary needs to squeeze as much value as possible out of Lombardi's 1.817M cap hit.
Word on the street is Garon will be in net for the Oilers tonight. He's been stellar recently and his play has conjured whispers of a goalie controversy in Oil country. He was the primary reason Edmonton won the last match between these two teams and was equally hot in the recent Oilers/Canucks contest. As such, let's hope that Kipper's return to eminence begins (continues?) this evening. Garon's in the zone and it may not matter how much better the Iginla trio is if Kipper gets handily outplayed by his counterpart again.
Prediction - I think the Flames are climbing out of the slump and are poised to go on a winning streak. Flames 4, Oil 1. Iginla, Lombardi, Nolan and Huselius for Calgary. Liam Reddox for the Oil.
I was picking on Conroy again a couple of posts ago and noted that "it's only a matter of time now before we see Lombo as a permanent fixture among the top 6".
Voila.
According to recent practice lines and Keenan in the linked article, Lombardi will be starting the night out between Iginla and Tanguay, while Conroy will be moved down with Nolan and Nystrom. Now those are lines I can get behind. Sure, the Conroy trio probably won't score much, but they also won't be detrimental, especially if they're matched up against other 3rd or 4th lines. Heck, it might even give them a chance bust out of their slumps if they're played against softer competition.
In the above piece, Conroy mentions a psychological factor he claims was contributing to his struggles which I hadn't considered before:
Conroy admitted he was deferring the puck to Iginla and Tanguay too much because they were having more success.
"You know, when you miss a good chance with those two, you get upset. With Buster and I both struggling, neither is gonna feel worse, 'That guy's doing no better than me,' " Conroy said.
**(Side note - did anyone else know that Nolan's nickname was "Buster"?)
Lombardi can do himself and the team a world of good by taking advantage of his opportunity tonight. He won't be seeing the toughest competition, given he's playing the Oilers, so he has every reason to succeed. His emergence would solidify the top unit and make Keenan's power v. power strategy a little less of a gamble against elite competition going forward. It would also mark an important step-forward for Lombardi's career and the organization as a whole since the Flames desperately need him to continue to develop into a top 6 player and out-perform his contract over the next 3 seasons. Given the impending budget crunch, Calgary needs to squeeze as much value as possible out of Lombardi's 1.817M cap hit.
Word on the street is Garon will be in net for the Oilers tonight. He's been stellar recently and his play has conjured whispers of a goalie controversy in Oil country. He was the primary reason Edmonton won the last match between these two teams and was equally hot in the recent Oilers/Canucks contest. As such, let's hope that Kipper's return to eminence begins (continues?) this evening. Garon's in the zone and it may not matter how much better the Iginla trio is if Kipper gets handily outplayed by his counterpart again.
Prediction - I think the Flames are climbing out of the slump and are poised to go on a winning streak. Flames 4, Oil 1. Iginla, Lombardi, Nolan and Huselius for Calgary. Liam Reddox for the Oil.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Tickling the Hypotheticals
I was recently invited by Alex of Penguinsbuzz to don my armchair GM hat and concoct a hypothetical trade between Calgary and Pittsburgh. The parameters, as defined by Alex were:
If you were GM of the Flames, what deal would you make with the Penguins?
The following players are most likely untouchable: Crosby, Malkin,
Staal, Whitney, Sykora, Recchi, Roberts.
The team's most pressing needs are wingers and defense, and possibly
goaltending.
Just write up a trade proposal and a quick reasoning and send it over
if you're interested.
My response:
The Flames have a couple glaring needs (now and in the near future):
LW and defense.
LW: I've always coveted Pittsburgh's Ryan Malone. He has the physical
tools of a top 6 winger: big, mobile, good hands. He's never put up
stellar numbers, but I like that he's young, just entering his prime
and relatively cheap.
Defense: Under-appreciated Mark Eaton is the guy I would target on the
Pen's back-end. He plays a lot against other teams best players and
logs the most SH time out of any of Pittsburgh's defenders. He's quiet
offensively, but would provide invaluable defensive depth (at a
reasonable price).
The challenge for making a deal from a Flames perspective is: many of
our most attractive assets are also the immovable ones. Iginla,
Tanguay, Regehr, Phaneuf and Kipper aren't going anywhere. In
addition, the team has cap issues, exacerbated by the fact that a lot
of the underachieving contracts (Conroy, Nolan, Aucoin, Warrener)
would be very difficult to unload. The result is a lack of cap-space
with the added inability to free any up without dealing core guys...
So: Mark Eaton and Ryan Malone. What can the Flames offer in return?
Let's start with Kristian Huselius and Rhett Warrener. Huselius scored
34 goals and 77 points last year. He's a pure point-getter and he's
led the Flames in terms of PPP/60 (powerplay points per 60 minutes of
ice) since coming here. He's an adept set-up man, but also has a very
accurate shot. He's actually one of my favorite Flames and is a sure
bet to outperform his miniscule 1.4M contract this year. The ONLY
reason I'd consider dealing him is he will probably be lost to Free
Agency in the summer given the fact that the Flames will likely be
unable to afford to cover the (deserved) sizable pay-hike he'll be
seeking.
Huselius (Or Juice, as he's called), was a big reason for Damond
Langkow's large jump in scoring last year. He would be positively
deadly at ES with either Malkin or Crosby, not to mention the PP
(which is where he really excels).
Rhett Warrener is capable bottom pairing d-man who is tough as nails
and adds an element of leadership (he's worn a letter here in Calgary
for years and has been to the Stanley Cup finals 3 separate times).
He's also a world-class trash-talker. On the negative side, he is
somewhat injury prone and doesn't contribute enough in terms of
quantitative results to justify his 2.35M cap-hit. But, the Flames are
looking to clear up cap-space (this year and next year) and Warrener
is probably the most attractive player out of the Flames "salary dump"
bin.
Calgary can also sweeten the pot with a minor-league prospect (anyone
besides Dustin Boyd), a 3rd round pick or one of the cheaper, more
defensively oriented forwards (Stephane Yelle - PKing center with a
1.4m Cap hit).
Proposal:
Kristian Huselius (1.4M), Rhett Warrener (2.35M) and Yelle
(1.4M)/prospect/3rd round pick for
Ryan Malone (1.375M) and Mark Eaton (1.6M).
The Pens get the best player in the deal (Huselius) while the Flames
get younger and dump some salary. While both Malone and Huselius are
UFA next season, both teams would likely have the capacity to re-sign
their new player in the off-season if so desired**. Warrener is signed
for another year after this one @ 2.35M, while Eaton is also
unrestricted - meaning the Flames accept a higher element of risk in
the deal (could lose both pieces to free agency).
**(I think the teams would have to have an "informal talk" with each
player to see if he would be would amicable to re-signing with his new
team in the off-season.)
Results:
Calgary gets slightly worse offensively in the short term, but better
defensively. They add a young LWer who can be re-signed for a relative
bargain in the off-season and shore up the organizations LW depth
behind Tanguay. They also rid themselves of Warrener's contract, since
many of his primary assets (experience, physicality) are already more
capably covered by other players on the roster.
Pittsburgh becomes even more offensively dangerous with the addition
of Huselius, but they lose a top pairing guy in Mark Eaton. That frees
up roster space for their up-and-coming blueliners (Orpick, Whitney)
and converts 2 potential UFA losses into a couple of assets. Warrener
won't replace Eaton's on-ice contributions, but is an experienced,
battle-scarred
warrior who has the ability to assist and tutor young players like
Letang, Whitney and Orpick.
Alex responds:
I would love to have Huselius, but I'm uneasy about getting Warrener.
Our whole defense is basically made up of guys like him: no. 6-7
defensemen,
(I know the feeling, Alex - ed.)
...so it wouldn't really help us out. Right now Eaton is
playing on the top pairing with Gonchar, so it would be tough to part
with him. I'd love to unload Sydor, but his salary ($2.5 mil per year
for the next 2 years) makes it pretty hard. He's been a pretty big
disappointment so far this year...he was a healthy scratch in
tonight's win over the Isles.
Malone has been playing really well on the top line with Sid this
year, but I think i'd take Huselius over him anyday. When Malone is
on, he's unstoppable. He's just had problems with consistency over the
past few years, and Crosby really needs a winger who can score.
So, perhaps a Malone for Huselius deal would work, maybe with each
team giving up a draft pick.
Regular readers are probably wondering why I'd further cripple the Flames already nominal secondary scoring with a Huselius/Malone swap. The reality is, the true aim of my proposal was to dump Warrener's salary and get Eaton. Since that was (sensibly) rejected, chances are I wouldn't initiate a straight Huselius for Malone swap - the Flames don't gain anything in terms of cap space and lose about 20 points. Not to mention the fact that Malone is also UFA in the summer and could be pursued by the Flames at that time.
I think I got too greedy with the inclusion of Eaton, which is probably what scuttled the deal. But that's what hypothetical deals are for, right? Perhaps a Huselius+Warrener for Malone+draft pick would have been more likely to be accepted, but, that further cripples the Flames already thin back-end.
As you can see, dumping salary is problematic, particularly when you can't really accept any in return. Even fans pretending to be GMs are reticent to take on under-performing contracts, let alone actual GM's.
My thanks to Alex for initiating the excercise.
If you were GM of the Flames, what deal would you make with the Penguins?
The following players are most likely untouchable: Crosby, Malkin,
Staal, Whitney, Sykora, Recchi, Roberts.
The team's most pressing needs are wingers and defense, and possibly
goaltending.
Just write up a trade proposal and a quick reasoning and send it over
if you're interested.
My response:
The Flames have a couple glaring needs (now and in the near future):
LW and defense.
LW: I've always coveted Pittsburgh's Ryan Malone. He has the physical
tools of a top 6 winger: big, mobile, good hands. He's never put up
stellar numbers, but I like that he's young, just entering his prime
and relatively cheap.
Defense: Under-appreciated Mark Eaton is the guy I would target on the
Pen's back-end. He plays a lot against other teams best players and
logs the most SH time out of any of Pittsburgh's defenders. He's quiet
offensively, but would provide invaluable defensive depth (at a
reasonable price).
The challenge for making a deal from a Flames perspective is: many of
our most attractive assets are also the immovable ones. Iginla,
Tanguay, Regehr, Phaneuf and Kipper aren't going anywhere. In
addition, the team has cap issues, exacerbated by the fact that a lot
of the underachieving contracts (Conroy, Nolan, Aucoin, Warrener)
would be very difficult to unload. The result is a lack of cap-space
with the added inability to free any up without dealing core guys...
So: Mark Eaton and Ryan Malone. What can the Flames offer in return?
Let's start with Kristian Huselius and Rhett Warrener. Huselius scored
34 goals and 77 points last year. He's a pure point-getter and he's
led the Flames in terms of PPP/60 (powerplay points per 60 minutes of
ice) since coming here. He's an adept set-up man, but also has a very
accurate shot. He's actually one of my favorite Flames and is a sure
bet to outperform his miniscule 1.4M contract this year. The ONLY
reason I'd consider dealing him is he will probably be lost to Free
Agency in the summer given the fact that the Flames will likely be
unable to afford to cover the (deserved) sizable pay-hike he'll be
seeking.
Huselius (Or Juice, as he's called), was a big reason for Damond
Langkow's large jump in scoring last year. He would be positively
deadly at ES with either Malkin or Crosby, not to mention the PP
(which is where he really excels).
Rhett Warrener is capable bottom pairing d-man who is tough as nails
and adds an element of leadership (he's worn a letter here in Calgary
for years and has been to the Stanley Cup finals 3 separate times).
He's also a world-class trash-talker. On the negative side, he is
somewhat injury prone and doesn't contribute enough in terms of
quantitative results to justify his 2.35M cap-hit. But, the Flames are
looking to clear up cap-space (this year and next year) and Warrener
is probably the most attractive player out of the Flames "salary dump"
bin.
Calgary can also sweeten the pot with a minor-league prospect (anyone
besides Dustin Boyd), a 3rd round pick or one of the cheaper, more
defensively oriented forwards (Stephane Yelle - PKing center with a
1.4m Cap hit).
Proposal:
Kristian Huselius (1.4M), Rhett Warrener (2.35M) and Yelle
(1.4M)/prospect/3rd round pick for
Ryan Malone (1.375M) and Mark Eaton (1.6M).
The Pens get the best player in the deal (Huselius) while the Flames
get younger and dump some salary. While both Malone and Huselius are
UFA next season, both teams would likely have the capacity to re-sign
their new player in the off-season if so desired**. Warrener is signed
for another year after this one @ 2.35M, while Eaton is also
unrestricted - meaning the Flames accept a higher element of risk in
the deal (could lose both pieces to free agency).
**(I think the teams would have to have an "informal talk" with each
player to see if he would be would amicable to re-signing with his new
team in the off-season.)
Results:
Calgary gets slightly worse offensively in the short term, but better
defensively. They add a young LWer who can be re-signed for a relative
bargain in the off-season and shore up the organizations LW depth
behind Tanguay. They also rid themselves of Warrener's contract, since
many of his primary assets (experience, physicality) are already more
capably covered by other players on the roster.
Pittsburgh becomes even more offensively dangerous with the addition
of Huselius, but they lose a top pairing guy in Mark Eaton. That frees
up roster space for their up-and-coming blueliners (Orpick, Whitney)
and converts 2 potential UFA losses into a couple of assets. Warrener
won't replace Eaton's on-ice contributions, but is an experienced,
battle-scarred
warrior who has the ability to assist and tutor young players like
Letang, Whitney and Orpick.
Alex responds:
I would love to have Huselius, but I'm uneasy about getting Warrener.
Our whole defense is basically made up of guys like him: no. 6-7
defensemen,
(I know the feeling, Alex - ed.)
...so it wouldn't really help us out. Right now Eaton is
playing on the top pairing with Gonchar, so it would be tough to part
with him. I'd love to unload Sydor, but his salary ($2.5 mil per year
for the next 2 years) makes it pretty hard. He's been a pretty big
disappointment so far this year...he was a healthy scratch in
tonight's win over the Isles.
Malone has been playing really well on the top line with Sid this
year, but I think i'd take Huselius over him anyday. When Malone is
on, he's unstoppable. He's just had problems with consistency over the
past few years, and Crosby really needs a winger who can score.
So, perhaps a Malone for Huselius deal would work, maybe with each
team giving up a draft pick.
Regular readers are probably wondering why I'd further cripple the Flames already nominal secondary scoring with a Huselius/Malone swap. The reality is, the true aim of my proposal was to dump Warrener's salary and get Eaton. Since that was (sensibly) rejected, chances are I wouldn't initiate a straight Huselius for Malone swap - the Flames don't gain anything in terms of cap space and lose about 20 points. Not to mention the fact that Malone is also UFA in the summer and could be pursued by the Flames at that time.
I think I got too greedy with the inclusion of Eaton, which is probably what scuttled the deal. But that's what hypothetical deals are for, right? Perhaps a Huselius+Warrener for Malone+draft pick would have been more likely to be accepted, but, that further cripples the Flames already thin back-end.
As you can see, dumping salary is problematic, particularly when you can't really accept any in return. Even fans pretending to be GMs are reticent to take on under-performing contracts, let alone actual GM's.
My thanks to Alex for initiating the excercise.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Flames/Wild Postgame
Not the most convincing of wins, but I'll take whatever I can get at the moment.
The boys got the bounces (finally), but Calgary wasn't necessarily the superior team last night, despite being on home ice against a principally neutered opponent (how is that Demitra and Gaborik both have groin injuries at the same time? Are they more than just friends?). The PK looked like a headless chicken whenever it lacked Lombardi and the Flames break-out is oddly similar to the Oilers break-out from last year:
[description] A panicked defender rims the puck to a winger with his ass on the boards and prayer in his heart. He's immediately set upon by one or two of his forechecking opponents. Sometimes, he'll succeed in coaxing the puck through a few legs or off the glass into the neutral zone. Far more frequently, though, he'll be rapidly overwhelmed, the puck will be shot back in, and the dance will begin anew.
As such, the Flames have a really hard time in the transition. A lot of energy is wasted just trying to extract the puck from their own end of the rink and/or retrieve it from the neutral zone. Whether it's the scheme at fault or the puck distributing skills of the defenders (I think it's the latter), the Flames are going to have to find a more efficient way to break-out. And soon.
Craig Conroy and Owen Nolan are empty helmets out there. Aside from his typical short-circuiting of Calgary's forecheck, missing opportunities, and losing key draws, Conroy flubbed a back-check last night leading to the Wild's first goal. Then there's Nolan, who seems to be resigned to his inexorable descent into obsolescence (at least Conroy is TRYING). He does little more than coast around. He looks surprised or confused whenever the puck lands on his stick. He frequently fails to even finish checks. He has truly become THE AMONTE (although, to be fair, Tony did seem to work his ass off more often than not).
As for the good, Matthew Lombardi looked like one of the best forwards on the ice for the second straight game. He saved a goal with a heady back-check in the third and was probably the Flames best penalty killer. He was briefly moved up to play with Tanguay and Iginla near the end of the game and didn't look out of place. I think it's only a matter of time now before we see Lombo as a permanent fixture among the top 6.
It's a small and tentative step forward, but it's a step. Kipper didn't let a softy in for the first time in awhile and Regehr is looking a little leaner and meaner since taking out his aggressions on poor Ales Hemsky on Saturday night. A consistently better Kipper and an intractable Regehr would go a long way to righting this ship. The PK would likely improve (a bit) and the only remaining issue would be coaxing some goals out of the supporting cast...
The boys got the bounces (finally), but Calgary wasn't necessarily the superior team last night, despite being on home ice against a principally neutered opponent (how is that Demitra and Gaborik both have groin injuries at the same time? Are they more than just friends?). The PK looked like a headless chicken whenever it lacked Lombardi and the Flames break-out is oddly similar to the Oilers break-out from last year:
[description] A panicked defender rims the puck to a winger with his ass on the boards and prayer in his heart. He's immediately set upon by one or two of his forechecking opponents. Sometimes, he'll succeed in coaxing the puck through a few legs or off the glass into the neutral zone. Far more frequently, though, he'll be rapidly overwhelmed, the puck will be shot back in, and the dance will begin anew.
As such, the Flames have a really hard time in the transition. A lot of energy is wasted just trying to extract the puck from their own end of the rink and/or retrieve it from the neutral zone. Whether it's the scheme at fault or the puck distributing skills of the defenders (I think it's the latter), the Flames are going to have to find a more efficient way to break-out. And soon.
Craig Conroy and Owen Nolan are empty helmets out there. Aside from his typical short-circuiting of Calgary's forecheck, missing opportunities, and losing key draws, Conroy flubbed a back-check last night leading to the Wild's first goal. Then there's Nolan, who seems to be resigned to his inexorable descent into obsolescence (at least Conroy is TRYING). He does little more than coast around. He looks surprised or confused whenever the puck lands on his stick. He frequently fails to even finish checks. He has truly become THE AMONTE (although, to be fair, Tony did seem to work his ass off more often than not).
As for the good, Matthew Lombardi looked like one of the best forwards on the ice for the second straight game. He saved a goal with a heady back-check in the third and was probably the Flames best penalty killer. He was briefly moved up to play with Tanguay and Iginla near the end of the game and didn't look out of place. I think it's only a matter of time now before we see Lombo as a permanent fixture among the top 6.
It's a small and tentative step forward, but it's a step. Kipper didn't let a softy in for the first time in awhile and Regehr is looking a little leaner and meaner since taking out his aggressions on poor Ales Hemsky on Saturday night. A consistently better Kipper and an intractable Regehr would go a long way to righting this ship. The PK would likely improve (a bit) and the only remaining issue would be coaxing some goals out of the supporting cast...
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Minny @ Flames pregame
I waited too long and Matt beat me to it. He covers all the bases.
Actually, this post is completely superfluous. Ignore.
Actually, this post is completely superfluous. Ignore.
The Bad and Maybe Good
As a Flames fan, it's pretty easy to be down right now. The team has gone into free-fall in the standings, losing 5 straight, 4 of which were against divisional foes. They can't seem to score or defend. The supporing players are ineffectual while the big guns are largely silent. There doesn't seem to be a hint of light on the dark horizon.
I think the dawn isn't too far away, however. While I've spent a lot of time pointing out the obvious failings of this club, I'll make it known here and now that I don't honestly think the Flames are THIS bad. Kelly Hrudy and the color crew for Saturday night's Battle of Alberta spent a lot of time pointing out the Flames bad luck. And it was bad. By my approximate, informal count, Calgary out-chanced the Oilers by about 2to1 that night and still ended on the wrong side of a 4-2 score.
And that's happened a bunch of times to Calgary thus far this season. The 5-4 S/O loss to Colorado. The 3-2 OT loss to Vancouver. The 3-2 O/T loss to Colorado. The Flames are hitting a lot of posts right now while pucks are deflecting in off just about everything and anything at the other end. No, it doesn't help that Kipper is going through probably the toughest stretch of his career as a Flame. And no, the rest of the players aren't totally blameless when it comes to the current slump. But, there does seem to be a strong element of chance contributing to Calgary's struggles currently. And the bounces are bound to start going the other way (right?).
Other stuff:
- Anders Eriksson has done a reasonable impersonation of an NHL defensemen the last 2 games. Im not ready to give him up as punching bag though. If he can a) continue to perform over the long-term and b) perform against tougher opposition than Edmonton and Vancouver, then I'll be ready to choose a new scapegoat (Im looking your way, Owen). I wouldn't bet on A or B happening, however.
- Lest anyone thinks I've become a head-in-the-sand, pom-pom waver, I'll end this post with some depressing stats:
Flames PK** is 28th in the league, running at a 74% clip. They've given up 24 PP goals against, less than only ATL (25). In contrast, San Jose and St. Louis have given up 7.
**(It's time to start considering the possibility that the Flames PK woes arise from some systemic flaw. Personally, I hate watching the Flames play that passive, diamond PK they so favor. There's no pressure on the puck carrier and no deterrent for point shots. The PK will improve once Kipper returns to form, of course, but probably not by any real measure if the Flames don't change their strategy.)
Kiprusoff is rated 35th in the league in terms of SV% (0.884). Johan Holmqvist, Johan Hedberg, Peter Budaj and Dany Sabourin all have superior numbers.
The Flames have scored 49 goals so far. Five players (Iginla, Huselius, Langkow, Tanguay, Lombardi) account for 35 of those, or 71%. Of the remaining 14 goals, Phaneuf and Regehr account for 5 of them, meaning the last 9 are spread out among 9 other forwards and 5 defensemen.
The Flames are winless in November.
I think the dawn isn't too far away, however. While I've spent a lot of time pointing out the obvious failings of this club, I'll make it known here and now that I don't honestly think the Flames are THIS bad. Kelly Hrudy and the color crew for Saturday night's Battle of Alberta spent a lot of time pointing out the Flames bad luck. And it was bad. By my approximate, informal count, Calgary out-chanced the Oilers by about 2to1 that night and still ended on the wrong side of a 4-2 score.
And that's happened a bunch of times to Calgary thus far this season. The 5-4 S/O loss to Colorado. The 3-2 OT loss to Vancouver. The 3-2 O/T loss to Colorado. The Flames are hitting a lot of posts right now while pucks are deflecting in off just about everything and anything at the other end. No, it doesn't help that Kipper is going through probably the toughest stretch of his career as a Flame. And no, the rest of the players aren't totally blameless when it comes to the current slump. But, there does seem to be a strong element of chance contributing to Calgary's struggles currently. And the bounces are bound to start going the other way (right?).
Other stuff:
- Anders Eriksson has done a reasonable impersonation of an NHL defensemen the last 2 games. Im not ready to give him up as punching bag though. If he can a) continue to perform over the long-term and b) perform against tougher opposition than Edmonton and Vancouver, then I'll be ready to choose a new scapegoat (Im looking your way, Owen). I wouldn't bet on A or B happening, however.
- Lest anyone thinks I've become a head-in-the-sand, pom-pom waver, I'll end this post with some depressing stats:
Flames PK** is 28th in the league, running at a 74% clip. They've given up 24 PP goals against, less than only ATL (25). In contrast, San Jose and St. Louis have given up 7.
**(It's time to start considering the possibility that the Flames PK woes arise from some systemic flaw. Personally, I hate watching the Flames play that passive, diamond PK they so favor. There's no pressure on the puck carrier and no deterrent for point shots. The PK will improve once Kipper returns to form, of course, but probably not by any real measure if the Flames don't change their strategy.)
Kiprusoff is rated 35th in the league in terms of SV% (0.884). Johan Holmqvist, Johan Hedberg, Peter Budaj and Dany Sabourin all have superior numbers.
The Flames have scored 49 goals so far. Five players (Iginla, Huselius, Langkow, Tanguay, Lombardi) account for 35 of those, or 71%. Of the remaining 14 goals, Phaneuf and Regehr account for 5 of them, meaning the last 9 are spread out among 9 other forwards and 5 defensemen.
The Flames are winless in November.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Ugh
Flames are 10 minutes away from their 4th straight 3 goal loss to a division opponent.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this is not a very good team right now. It really looks like a lame horse trying to pull a big bag of anvils.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this is not a very good team right now. It really looks like a lame horse trying to pull a big bag of anvils.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Observations and Rants
- With the exception of a game or two and a shift here or there, Craig Conroy has mostly played with Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay at even-strength this year. That's why it's so bloody hard to explain his measely 3 ES points and (even more baffling) his -1 rating (Iginla and Tanguay are a +8 and +5 respectively). That is a an incredible and unique kind of sucking right there. Just to pile on, his GA/60 rate is an abysmal 3.06, versus the 2.58 and 2.48 rates of his linemates. Talk about an anchor. One can't but wonder what kind of stats Iginla and Tanguay would have with a capable pivot in between them.
- Guess who is currently 5th in league in terms of plus/minus? None other than former Flame Charles Kobasew III. What's even more galling is he has more goals than Nolan, Primeau, Conroy, Moss, Yelle and Nilson combined.
- Word on the radio is that Phaneuf aggravated a leg injury against Detroit and it's been bothering him during the last few games, which goes a little ways to explain his drop-off in play. What's truly concerning is the fact that he's questionable to play against Vancouver tomorrow night. Take a gander at the Flames defensive depth Sans Dion:
Regehr - Sarich
Warrener - Aucoin
Eriksson - Hale
(Ramholt?)
Fugly. The only bright side is the fact that the Canucks own back-end is more beat up and thererfore about as questionable as Calgary's at the moment:
Ohlund - Mitchell
Miller - Weaver
Edler - Bourdon
(Coloumbe?)
If the Flames forwards can't exploit that blueline at home, well then we're in more trouble than I thought.
- Rant time:
I think I've had enough of the "leadership" explanation that many fans traditionally give for a struggling team. You know the one bandied about the water-coolers and messageboards when the home squad isn't winning as much as people think they ought to be:
"This team doesn't have enough leadership."
"The leaders aren't leading."
"We need to get more leadership into the dressing room."
etc.
And here's why...
Firstly, it's a fuzzy, ill-defined concept. What, precisely, constitutes a good leader? I know I have a sort of general idea of what I personally consider "good leadership", but it may not even resemble the one held by other hockey fans. So, is the guy who kicks garbage cans in the lockerroom during losses a leader? The guy who gives a rousing "let's win one for Gipper" speeches at intermission? How about the strong, silent type that "leads by example" on the ice? How about the selfless shot-blocker or the player that will drop the gloves to "give his club a lift"? Is it the guy who gives the best sound bites to the press? Is it the affable centerman who keeps things light in the dressing room? How about the guy who excels in key situations? Was Claude Lemieux a good leader? Should we just assume the guys who seem to always be on winning teams are good leaders?
I dont know if it's any one of these things or a combination of them. I have no idea if it's some magical mix of the above qualities that defines a good leader and I especially don't know how or why these values would fluctuate within a given player or player(s) so as to come to the conclusion that "the leaders on this team aren't leading right now."
A corollary issue is the fact that leadership is unquantifiable and therefore unmeasurable. How does one know if a team "needs more leadership"? Can it be accumulated on a roster, like, say, scoring? Does a team need a certain amount of leadership before it becomes effective? How do you know when you have enough? Can there be too much?
The other problem is, assuming a great deal of "leading" occurs behind the scenes, most fans can't directly observe the locker-room dynamics of a given team and therefore can't make any kind of educated guess about the quality or nature of the leadership in place. As such, a fan besmirching a given club's leadership is typically making a baseless assertion that can't be backed by anything more than a shoddy record or a recent losing streak.
In conclusion, player leadership is an ill-defined concept that is unquantifiable and unknowable from an average fan's perspective. I suspect the "lack of leadership" trope is trotted out as an ad hoc explanation when other interpretations for a club's struggles seem lacking: a sort of "one size fits all" derisive statement that can employed when you think that your team should be playing better than it is.
Unfortunately, there are probably a whole host of other, far more salient reasons a team is losing at any given time: poor coaching strategy, injuries, general lack of skill, superior opponents, lack of discipline, etc. Its these sorts of factors that actually have a direct, causal effect on a team's win record as opposed to the quality and degree of "leadership" on a squad. Hitler could be giving the most rousing, charismatic speeches in between every intermission, but if a roster is filled with a bunch of unskilled scrubs, they're probably going to get killed 99 times out of 100 anyways. As such, I urge any fan who is tempted to give voice to the "lack of leadership" complaint in the future, to stop and take a more critical look at the team in question and they're own premises when it comes to evaluating them. It's possible your favorite squad doesn't have good leadership, but it's far more probable (and, in addition, far more discoverable) that they just aren't as good as you thought they were.
**I should add that I don't think that leadership (as I conceive of it, anyways) is wholly worthless. In a game between two evenly matched opponents (with all other things being equal), there is likely some value to having a well-respected player that can motivate and/or focus the rest of his teammates.
- Guess who is currently 5th in league in terms of plus/minus? None other than former Flame Charles Kobasew III. What's even more galling is he has more goals than Nolan, Primeau, Conroy, Moss, Yelle and Nilson combined.
- Word on the radio is that Phaneuf aggravated a leg injury against Detroit and it's been bothering him during the last few games, which goes a little ways to explain his drop-off in play. What's truly concerning is the fact that he's questionable to play against Vancouver tomorrow night. Take a gander at the Flames defensive depth Sans Dion:
Regehr - Sarich
Warrener - Aucoin
Eriksson - Hale
(Ramholt?)
Fugly. The only bright side is the fact that the Canucks own back-end is more beat up and thererfore about as questionable as Calgary's at the moment:
Ohlund - Mitchell
Miller - Weaver
Edler - Bourdon
(Coloumbe?)
If the Flames forwards can't exploit that blueline at home, well then we're in more trouble than I thought.
- Rant time:
I think I've had enough of the "leadership" explanation that many fans traditionally give for a struggling team. You know the one bandied about the water-coolers and messageboards when the home squad isn't winning as much as people think they ought to be:
"This team doesn't have enough leadership."
"The leaders aren't leading."
"We need to get more leadership into the dressing room."
etc.
And here's why...
Firstly, it's a fuzzy, ill-defined concept. What, precisely, constitutes a good leader? I know I have a sort of general idea of what I personally consider "good leadership", but it may not even resemble the one held by other hockey fans. So, is the guy who kicks garbage cans in the lockerroom during losses a leader? The guy who gives a rousing "let's win one for Gipper" speeches at intermission? How about the strong, silent type that "leads by example" on the ice? How about the selfless shot-blocker or the player that will drop the gloves to "give his club a lift"? Is it the guy who gives the best sound bites to the press? Is it the affable centerman who keeps things light in the dressing room? How about the guy who excels in key situations? Was Claude Lemieux a good leader? Should we just assume the guys who seem to always be on winning teams are good leaders?
I dont know if it's any one of these things or a combination of them. I have no idea if it's some magical mix of the above qualities that defines a good leader and I especially don't know how or why these values would fluctuate within a given player or player(s) so as to come to the conclusion that "the leaders on this team aren't leading right now."
A corollary issue is the fact that leadership is unquantifiable and therefore unmeasurable. How does one know if a team "needs more leadership"? Can it be accumulated on a roster, like, say, scoring? Does a team need a certain amount of leadership before it becomes effective? How do you know when you have enough? Can there be too much?
The other problem is, assuming a great deal of "leading" occurs behind the scenes, most fans can't directly observe the locker-room dynamics of a given team and therefore can't make any kind of educated guess about the quality or nature of the leadership in place. As such, a fan besmirching a given club's leadership is typically making a baseless assertion that can't be backed by anything more than a shoddy record or a recent losing streak.
In conclusion, player leadership is an ill-defined concept that is unquantifiable and unknowable from an average fan's perspective. I suspect the "lack of leadership" trope is trotted out as an ad hoc explanation when other interpretations for a club's struggles seem lacking: a sort of "one size fits all" derisive statement that can employed when you think that your team should be playing better than it is.
Unfortunately, there are probably a whole host of other, far more salient reasons a team is losing at any given time: poor coaching strategy, injuries, general lack of skill, superior opponents, lack of discipline, etc. Its these sorts of factors that actually have a direct, causal effect on a team's win record as opposed to the quality and degree of "leadership" on a squad. Hitler could be giving the most rousing, charismatic speeches in between every intermission, but if a roster is filled with a bunch of unskilled scrubs, they're probably going to get killed 99 times out of 100 anyways. As such, I urge any fan who is tempted to give voice to the "lack of leadership" complaint in the future, to stop and take a more critical look at the team in question and they're own premises when it comes to evaluating them. It's possible your favorite squad doesn't have good leadership, but it's far more probable (and, in addition, far more discoverable) that they just aren't as good as you thought they were.
**I should add that I don't think that leadership (as I conceive of it, anyways) is wholly worthless. In a game between two evenly matched opponents (with all other things being equal), there is likely some value to having a well-respected player that can motivate and/or focus the rest of his teammates.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
More Than Goals
Saying 'we'll play well'
Is not the words I want to hear from you
Its not that I want you
Not to say it, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show us how you feel
More than goals is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you'll play well
Cos we'd already know
More than goals
What would you do if Jarome got Avian Flu?
More than goals to show you feel
That your love for wins is real
How would you play if I took those goals away?
Then you couldn't score in lieu
of playing sound defense too...
This Extreme parody would have been more appropriate when the Flames were actually scoring, but, given that getting goals is about the only thing Calgary has done with any sort of efficacy so far this year, I think it still applies.
So, 3 straight 4-1 losses, 2 against divisional opponents. Now that the big guns have cooled off, the warts are in full view. I didn't shell out the dough for last night's beating, but by all accounts it was an all around stinker. Kipper pulled after allowing 4 goals and he played well. That's the hallmark of a struggling team.
I don't think Keenan has had any measurable effect on this team yet. The October record was better than I anticipated, but that had a lot to do with a bunch of forwards getting hot all at the same time. Langkow and Juice have fallen away with a vengence and Iginla and Tanguay have to battle through the toughest assignments while carrying Conroy at ES most of the time.
The real issue, though, is the defensive game, or the lack thereof. The Flames are giving up too many quality chances against on any given night. Part of the problem to my eye is the foot-speed and transition skills on the back-end. With the exception of Dion Phaneuf, nobody on the Flames blueline could be considered fleet of foot or a capable puck mover. Sarich and Regehr are "glass and out" players, who tend to pass the puck into their forwards skates as much as they simply dump it out into random areas in the neutral zone. Then there's the 3rd pairing, that features more of the same at the best of times.
The other part seems to be, well...awareness. Experienced guys like Regehr and Aucoin are making bafflingly bad decisions on a nightly basis. watch the Statsny goal again if you get a chance. Aucoin abandons him in front of the Flames net in favor of chasing the puck carrier, who is already being capably covered by Dion Phaneuf. As a friend of mine put it, "it's almost as if Statsny can make himself invisible!" One of the theoretical benefits of having a veteran squad is they aren't supposed to make these kinds of errors. But they are, consistently, and Im not sure why.
I've already made the point in this space that the Flames are overly top heavy so I won't beat that dead horse anymore. For now.
Solutions...? Not sure. The Flames are basically stuck with a lot of the underperforming contracts they have. Nolan, Conroy, Warrener, Eriksson and Aucoin aren't going anywhere. Keenan has yet to make his mark, so there's still hope that he can mould this group into some kind of cohesive unit. A return to form by Regehr and Kipper will help salve a lot of wounds, and Iginla, Langkow etc. are bound to get hot again at some point. It's a hope for competence, but Im not sure I'd bet a day's salary on this group making it deep into the post season. Certainly not how they stand currently.
Is not the words I want to hear from you
Its not that I want you
Not to say it, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show us how you feel
More than goals is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you'll play well
Cos we'd already know
More than goals
What would you do if Jarome got Avian Flu?
More than goals to show you feel
That your love for wins is real
How would you play if I took those goals away?
Then you couldn't score in lieu
of playing sound defense too...
This Extreme parody would have been more appropriate when the Flames were actually scoring, but, given that getting goals is about the only thing Calgary has done with any sort of efficacy so far this year, I think it still applies.
So, 3 straight 4-1 losses, 2 against divisional opponents. Now that the big guns have cooled off, the warts are in full view. I didn't shell out the dough for last night's beating, but by all accounts it was an all around stinker. Kipper pulled after allowing 4 goals and he played well. That's the hallmark of a struggling team.
I don't think Keenan has had any measurable effect on this team yet. The October record was better than I anticipated, but that had a lot to do with a bunch of forwards getting hot all at the same time. Langkow and Juice have fallen away with a vengence and Iginla and Tanguay have to battle through the toughest assignments while carrying Conroy at ES most of the time.
The real issue, though, is the defensive game, or the lack thereof. The Flames are giving up too many quality chances against on any given night. Part of the problem to my eye is the foot-speed and transition skills on the back-end. With the exception of Dion Phaneuf, nobody on the Flames blueline could be considered fleet of foot or a capable puck mover. Sarich and Regehr are "glass and out" players, who tend to pass the puck into their forwards skates as much as they simply dump it out into random areas in the neutral zone. Then there's the 3rd pairing, that features more of the same at the best of times.
The other part seems to be, well...awareness. Experienced guys like Regehr and Aucoin are making bafflingly bad decisions on a nightly basis. watch the Statsny goal again if you get a chance. Aucoin abandons him in front of the Flames net in favor of chasing the puck carrier, who is already being capably covered by Dion Phaneuf. As a friend of mine put it, "it's almost as if Statsny can make himself invisible!" One of the theoretical benefits of having a veteran squad is they aren't supposed to make these kinds of errors. But they are, consistently, and Im not sure why.
I've already made the point in this space that the Flames are overly top heavy so I won't beat that dead horse anymore. For now.
Solutions...? Not sure. The Flames are basically stuck with a lot of the underperforming contracts they have. Nolan, Conroy, Warrener, Eriksson and Aucoin aren't going anywhere. Keenan has yet to make his mark, so there's still hope that he can mould this group into some kind of cohesive unit. A return to form by Regehr and Kipper will help salve a lot of wounds, and Iginla, Langkow etc. are bound to get hot again at some point. It's a hope for competence, but Im not sure I'd bet a day's salary on this group making it deep into the post season. Certainly not how they stand currently.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Misc.
I'm just going throw some stuff against the wall and see what sticks...
There's an interesting discussion going on over at the real deal regarding the quality of minutes Flames defenders tend to get each night. My contention is that Dion Phaneuf is currently the top dog on the Calgary blueline, drawing the toughest minutes at ES. On the other hand, Kyle believes that Regehr is still the Flames hard minute-muncher.
I hadn't really looked into it too deeply, just gone on general impressions I'd gotten from watching the games. To my eyes, it looked like Keenan was playing the Aucoin/Phaneuf duo with the Iginla line and then running that unit out against the other opposition's top dogs. One thing Im not while watching Flames games, though, is dispassionately unbiased, so I figured I should explore the matter a little.
Thanks to the fabulous time on ice app, I was able to do some investigating. The first game I looked at was the most recent Detroit/Clagary match, mainly because it was my post on the Zetterberg match-ups that generated this discussion. In that game, Phaneuf played 17 minutes at ES, about 10 of which was spent against Lidstrom, Rafalski, Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Holmstrom. Regehr, on the other hand, played about 15 minutes at ES, a bulk of which was against the Cleary/Draper/Filpulla unit(s). In the end, Reggie saw only about 4 minutes against the likes of Datsyuk and Zetterberg that night.
There wasn't as discernible a pattern in the Nashville/Calgary contest. Dion played sixteen and a half minutes, primarily against Arnott, Dumont and Erat. Regehr only saw 12.5 ES minutes that night, about half of which was also against guys like Erat and Arnott (though, he played against Legwand more than Phaneuf did). Some clarification can be had by looking at Arnott's minutes (assuming he's the #1 center in Nashville). He played the most of any forward (12.9 minutes), and about 10 them he was run against the Iginla trio. Phaneuf and Aucoin saw over 7 minutes against Arnott's line, with Regehr and Sarich down around 5. Again, it looks like Phaneuf is getting the tougher minutes here.
However, on Saturday against the Wild, Phaneuf saw a whopping 22 ES minutes, but only played 3 of them against Gaborik. Regehr, on the other hand, was on for 18 5on5 minutes and played 6+ against Gaborik's line. The confounder here is the Lemaire factor - as the home team, Minny had the power to keep Gabby et al. away from the Iginla/Phaneuf unit and it looks like that's what they did. Hell, Anders Eriksson played more against Marian than Phaneuf did (4+ minutes) - and that's certainly not a match-up any sane person on the Flames bench would favor. Instead, Minnesata ran the Koivu/Veilleux checking unit out against Iginla's line, leaving the relatively exploitable "soft" minutes for Gaborik (and it worked. He scored 3 points, two at ES).
This segues nicely into a comment about Robyn Regehr...
He's sucking complete ass right now. His GA/60 rate is currently sitting at 2.54, 2nd highest on the team behind Anders (the 3.0M useless tit) Eriksson (3.54 GA/60) - even though he's not consistently seeing the toughest match-ups. And that's just his ES stat, which is where the Flames are relatively strong. At SH, Regehr's GA/60 rate is an abysmal 12.12. Granted, none of the Flames are any good by this measure (Aucoin - 12.99 GA/60, Phaneuf 12.98 GA/60, Sarich 12.82 GA/60, Eriksson 15.65 GA/60), but this is where Reggie should really excel. To put that number in perspective, guys like Pronger, Malik, Brett Clark and Steve Staios are hovering around the 4 to 5 GA/60 mark on the PK so far.
Not good.
Regehr ended up last season with an ES goals against rate of about 1.80, and that was when Phaneuf was still being sheltered. The good news, then, is that Reggie is capable of being much better and may yet round into form (he kinda struggled last year too for awhile). The bad news is, defense is all Regehr brings to the table. If he can't recapture his "shut-down" form, then the Flames will be stuck with a 4.0M, medicore, 20 point blueliner for the next 5 years.
I honestly don't think the latter will happen. Regehr has proven to be amongst the league's elite defensive minded rearguards in the past. Whatever's causing his current lack luster play - be it an injury or otherwise - I don't expect it to hamper him long term. When (if) the old Regehr returns, expect the Flames defense (and PK) to improve.
Which moves me onto my next topic: the Penalty Kill. It was bad last year and it's even worse thus far this season. Mirtle recently posted league-wide save percentage by situation and the Flames/Kipper placed dead last on the PK with a horrid 0.689 number. Less than 70%! That's 22% lower than the Flames ES SV% (.910)! Considering the personnel, that's an inexcusably bad figure. The second lowest in the league is the Chicago Blackhawks at 0.731.
Im at a loss to explain it, myself. Sure Regehr and Kipper haven't been great, but this is going on two seasons of team-wide PK suckage. If the coaching staff can't figure this one out, the Flames will continue to bleed goals against (and therefore wins).
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The Flames have been a team of extremes since Darryl Sutter took the reigns. At first, they were terrible at scoring but great at defending. League worst, league best. Then, under Playfair, the Flames figured out how to score, but couldn't win on the road. This year, the Flames are scoring even more prolifically, have won a couple on the road, but can't seem to defend while a man down. It's really starting to look like Sutter is plugging holes in a boat with his fingers: as soon as he fixes one leak, another one springs up...
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Calgary visits Colorado tonight, a place they should probably fear to tread. The Avs have won 6 straight against the Flames, the last two being improbable come-from behind victories. Hejduk is back in the Colorado line-up, meaning Quenneville will have his choice of lines to run against the Eriksson/Hale (or Warrener) duo this evening. Im guessing he'll reserve Sakic/Smyth/Svatos (Hejduk) unit for Iginla and then gleefully run out Statsny/Brunette/Wolski (Hejduk) against the softer underbelly. Of course, the ES match-ups may be immaterial if the Flame's PK continues to be bottom of the barrel (no signs that it won't). Sigh.
That said, let's go with optimism for this evening. The Avs have had the lions share of bounces against the Flames so far, meaning they're in-line for an own goal or two tonight. Besides, Kipper and Regehr have to turn it around at some point, right?
Flames 4, Avs 2. Iginla, Huselius, Moss and Phaneuf for Calgary. Sakic and Wolski for the Avs.
There's an interesting discussion going on over at the real deal regarding the quality of minutes Flames defenders tend to get each night. My contention is that Dion Phaneuf is currently the top dog on the Calgary blueline, drawing the toughest minutes at ES. On the other hand, Kyle believes that Regehr is still the Flames hard minute-muncher.
I hadn't really looked into it too deeply, just gone on general impressions I'd gotten from watching the games. To my eyes, it looked like Keenan was playing the Aucoin/Phaneuf duo with the Iginla line and then running that unit out against the other opposition's top dogs. One thing Im not while watching Flames games, though, is dispassionately unbiased, so I figured I should explore the matter a little.
Thanks to the fabulous time on ice app, I was able to do some investigating. The first game I looked at was the most recent Detroit/Clagary match, mainly because it was my post on the Zetterberg match-ups that generated this discussion. In that game, Phaneuf played 17 minutes at ES, about 10 of which was spent against Lidstrom, Rafalski, Zetterberg, Datsyuk and Holmstrom. Regehr, on the other hand, played about 15 minutes at ES, a bulk of which was against the Cleary/Draper/Filpulla unit(s). In the end, Reggie saw only about 4 minutes against the likes of Datsyuk and Zetterberg that night.
There wasn't as discernible a pattern in the Nashville/Calgary contest. Dion played sixteen and a half minutes, primarily against Arnott, Dumont and Erat. Regehr only saw 12.5 ES minutes that night, about half of which was also against guys like Erat and Arnott (though, he played against Legwand more than Phaneuf did). Some clarification can be had by looking at Arnott's minutes (assuming he's the #1 center in Nashville). He played the most of any forward (12.9 minutes), and about 10 them he was run against the Iginla trio. Phaneuf and Aucoin saw over 7 minutes against Arnott's line, with Regehr and Sarich down around 5. Again, it looks like Phaneuf is getting the tougher minutes here.
However, on Saturday against the Wild, Phaneuf saw a whopping 22 ES minutes, but only played 3 of them against Gaborik. Regehr, on the other hand, was on for 18 5on5 minutes and played 6+ against Gaborik's line. The confounder here is the Lemaire factor - as the home team, Minny had the power to keep Gabby et al. away from the Iginla/Phaneuf unit and it looks like that's what they did. Hell, Anders Eriksson played more against Marian than Phaneuf did (4+ minutes) - and that's certainly not a match-up any sane person on the Flames bench would favor. Instead, Minnesata ran the Koivu/Veilleux checking unit out against Iginla's line, leaving the relatively exploitable "soft" minutes for Gaborik (and it worked. He scored 3 points, two at ES).
This segues nicely into a comment about Robyn Regehr...
He's sucking complete ass right now. His GA/60 rate is currently sitting at 2.54, 2nd highest on the team behind Anders (the 3.0M useless tit) Eriksson (3.54 GA/60) - even though he's not consistently seeing the toughest match-ups. And that's just his ES stat, which is where the Flames are relatively strong. At SH, Regehr's GA/60 rate is an abysmal 12.12. Granted, none of the Flames are any good by this measure (Aucoin - 12.99 GA/60, Phaneuf 12.98 GA/60, Sarich 12.82 GA/60, Eriksson 15.65 GA/60), but this is where Reggie should really excel. To put that number in perspective, guys like Pronger, Malik, Brett Clark and Steve Staios are hovering around the 4 to 5 GA/60 mark on the PK so far.
Not good.
Regehr ended up last season with an ES goals against rate of about 1.80, and that was when Phaneuf was still being sheltered. The good news, then, is that Reggie is capable of being much better and may yet round into form (he kinda struggled last year too for awhile). The bad news is, defense is all Regehr brings to the table. If he can't recapture his "shut-down" form, then the Flames will be stuck with a 4.0M, medicore, 20 point blueliner for the next 5 years.
I honestly don't think the latter will happen. Regehr has proven to be amongst the league's elite defensive minded rearguards in the past. Whatever's causing his current lack luster play - be it an injury or otherwise - I don't expect it to hamper him long term. When (if) the old Regehr returns, expect the Flames defense (and PK) to improve.
Which moves me onto my next topic: the Penalty Kill. It was bad last year and it's even worse thus far this season. Mirtle recently posted league-wide save percentage by situation and the Flames/Kipper placed dead last on the PK with a horrid 0.689 number. Less than 70%! That's 22% lower than the Flames ES SV% (.910)! Considering the personnel, that's an inexcusably bad figure. The second lowest in the league is the Chicago Blackhawks at 0.731.
Im at a loss to explain it, myself. Sure Regehr and Kipper haven't been great, but this is going on two seasons of team-wide PK suckage. If the coaching staff can't figure this one out, the Flames will continue to bleed goals against (and therefore wins).
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The Flames have been a team of extremes since Darryl Sutter took the reigns. At first, they were terrible at scoring but great at defending. League worst, league best. Then, under Playfair, the Flames figured out how to score, but couldn't win on the road. This year, the Flames are scoring even more prolifically, have won a couple on the road, but can't seem to defend while a man down. It's really starting to look like Sutter is plugging holes in a boat with his fingers: as soon as he fixes one leak, another one springs up...
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Calgary visits Colorado tonight, a place they should probably fear to tread. The Avs have won 6 straight against the Flames, the last two being improbable come-from behind victories. Hejduk is back in the Colorado line-up, meaning Quenneville will have his choice of lines to run against the Eriksson/Hale (or Warrener) duo this evening. Im guessing he'll reserve Sakic/Smyth/Svatos (Hejduk) unit for Iginla and then gleefully run out Statsny/Brunette/Wolski (Hejduk) against the softer underbelly. Of course, the ES match-ups may be immaterial if the Flame's PK continues to be bottom of the barrel (no signs that it won't). Sigh.
That said, let's go with optimism for this evening. The Avs have had the lions share of bounces against the Flames so far, meaning they're in-line for an own goal or two tonight. Besides, Kipper and Regehr have to turn it around at some point, right?
Flames 4, Avs 2. Iginla, Huselius, Moss and Phaneuf for Calgary. Sakic and Wolski for the Avs.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Flames vs. Wild Pregame
Brief preview today.
The Wild have plummeted back to earth since losing to the Flames, although guys like Demitra and Gaborik are back in the line-up now. There's also a chance that Backstrom will back in net tonight.
It's difficult to guess which Flames team will take to the ice tonight - the one that gave up 3 first period goals to Minnesota in their first meeting, or the one that scored 5 unanswered ones the next 2 periods...
Kipper is still just okay in net (lowest PK SV% in the league), Regehr continues to struggle and now Warrener is out of the line-up with a throat infection. Meaning the 3rd pairing will be Hale-Eriksson this evening. On the road. Sigh.
Things to bet on:
- Phanuef will play more than 30 minutes.
- Iginla will get a least 2 points.
- The Flames will surrender a PP goal.
- Godard will get about 4 minutes of ice.
Perhaps it's hang-over from last game, but Im not optimistic. Playing the Wild in Minnesota is always a tough slog, and now the Flames have their terrible PK AND a couple of chaos defenders to worry about.
Prediction - Minny 3, Flames 2.
The Wild have plummeted back to earth since losing to the Flames, although guys like Demitra and Gaborik are back in the line-up now. There's also a chance that Backstrom will back in net tonight.
It's difficult to guess which Flames team will take to the ice tonight - the one that gave up 3 first period goals to Minnesota in their first meeting, or the one that scored 5 unanswered ones the next 2 periods...
Kipper is still just okay in net (lowest PK SV% in the league), Regehr continues to struggle and now Warrener is out of the line-up with a throat infection. Meaning the 3rd pairing will be Hale-Eriksson this evening. On the road. Sigh.
Things to bet on:
- Phanuef will play more than 30 minutes.
- Iginla will get a least 2 points.
- The Flames will surrender a PP goal.
- Godard will get about 4 minutes of ice.
Perhaps it's hang-over from last game, but Im not optimistic. Playing the Wild in Minnesota is always a tough slog, and now the Flames have their terrible PK AND a couple of chaos defenders to worry about.
Prediction - Minny 3, Flames 2.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Morning After Ruminations
The only "good" thing about losses is they expose weakness. They hilight the areas which need to improve. And the Flames obviously have a few of them.
A couple of posts ago, I pointed out that this team is grossly top-heavy: after the likes of Iginla, Tanguay, Langkow and Huselius, the drop-off in terms of talent and on-ice contributions is precipitous (excepting, perhaps, Lombardi). It seemed a minor complaint after Calgary beat up on Nashville, but attained full relevancy last night for anyone watching the Flames struggle (again) against the Red Wings. A simple game of "one of these things is not like the others" explains why:
Tanguay - Conroy - Iginla
Holmstrom - Daystuk - Zetterberg
One of these things just doesn't belong. If you selected "Conroy", congratulations! You win a big, steaming bowl of 'NO FUCKING SHIT SHERLOCK'.
This contrast is important because Keenan favors a power v. power strategy, particularly because Calgary doesn't own a capable shut-down trio of forwards (Yelle is apparently past his best before date in that regard), meaning he doesn't have much choice. Anyways, who can blame him with a couple of guys like Iggy and Tanguay who will probably kill most opponents on most nights (whoever the center on the line might be)?
The problem is, of course, that "most" opponents is not "all". The Flames will continue to struggle against elite competition because their line-up is riddled with Conroy-like weak links. As an illustration, did you know that Tony Amonte (who was forced to retire unofficially this summer due to a lack of interest in his skills) had one more goal and as many points as Owen Nolan does now at the same point of the season last year? And that was on an arguably worse squad at the time? Im sure that scares a few Flames fans more than anything they saw this Halloween.
Not that the deadweight is limited to the forwards. We're 13 games in and it's becoming more and more clear with each subsequent shift that Anders Eriksson isn't an NHL defensemen. Just isn't. He does nothing even adequately, let alone well. He vacillates between "harmfully bad" and "just good enough to not quite be harmfully bad". He played all of 15 minutes against the Wings and was on the ice for 3 of the 4 goals against. Also, he singlehandedly diffused the Flames forecheck on a number of occasions thanks to dumb decision making and an outright inability to carry the puck and skate at the same time. The Eriksson signing is so much like the Zyuzin one from a year ago, it almost boggles the mind that Sutter committed the same species of massive blunder AGAIN. Particularly since it cost the team a cheap, far more capable player in Giordano.
On that note, the Amonte/Nolan thing above also seems to be in step with the "expensive fading veterans" dance Sutter insists on sticking to, however out of time it is with the music that's playing.
Look, the Flames have some stud lead horses. And that's great. But they also have a lot of passengers and at least one broken wheel on the carriage. Until they off-load some weight and get the axle out of the mud, they aren't going to get too far.
A couple of posts ago, I pointed out that this team is grossly top-heavy: after the likes of Iginla, Tanguay, Langkow and Huselius, the drop-off in terms of talent and on-ice contributions is precipitous (excepting, perhaps, Lombardi). It seemed a minor complaint after Calgary beat up on Nashville, but attained full relevancy last night for anyone watching the Flames struggle (again) against the Red Wings. A simple game of "one of these things is not like the others" explains why:
Tanguay - Conroy - Iginla
Holmstrom - Daystuk - Zetterberg
One of these things just doesn't belong. If you selected "Conroy", congratulations! You win a big, steaming bowl of 'NO FUCKING SHIT SHERLOCK'.
This contrast is important because Keenan favors a power v. power strategy, particularly because Calgary doesn't own a capable shut-down trio of forwards (Yelle is apparently past his best before date in that regard), meaning he doesn't have much choice. Anyways, who can blame him with a couple of guys like Iggy and Tanguay who will probably kill most opponents on most nights (whoever the center on the line might be)?
The problem is, of course, that "most" opponents is not "all". The Flames will continue to struggle against elite competition because their line-up is riddled with Conroy-like weak links. As an illustration, did you know that Tony Amonte (who was forced to retire unofficially this summer due to a lack of interest in his skills) had one more goal and as many points as Owen Nolan does now at the same point of the season last year? And that was on an arguably worse squad at the time? Im sure that scares a few Flames fans more than anything they saw this Halloween.
Not that the deadweight is limited to the forwards. We're 13 games in and it's becoming more and more clear with each subsequent shift that Anders Eriksson isn't an NHL defensemen. Just isn't. He does nothing even adequately, let alone well. He vacillates between "harmfully bad" and "just good enough to not quite be harmfully bad". He played all of 15 minutes against the Wings and was on the ice for 3 of the 4 goals against. Also, he singlehandedly diffused the Flames forecheck on a number of occasions thanks to dumb decision making and an outright inability to carry the puck and skate at the same time. The Eriksson signing is so much like the Zyuzin one from a year ago, it almost boggles the mind that Sutter committed the same species of massive blunder AGAIN. Particularly since it cost the team a cheap, far more capable player in Giordano.
On that note, the Amonte/Nolan thing above also seems to be in step with the "expensive fading veterans" dance Sutter insists on sticking to, however out of time it is with the music that's playing.
Look, the Flames have some stud lead horses. And that's great. But they also have a lot of passengers and at least one broken wheel on the carriage. Until they off-load some weight and get the axle out of the mud, they aren't going to get too far.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Detroit @ Calgary Pregame
The Flames face a significantly stiffer test than the limping Nashville Predators tonight. The Red Wings have won 6 in a row and own one of the most potent trios in the league led by current top-dog Henrik Zetterberg*.
*(how lucky** do I feel that I snagged both Crosby AND Henry in my Flames blogger pool?)
**(by lucky I mean, of course, brilliant.)
It'll be interesting to see what strategy Keenan favors this evening. The Flames don't really have a shut-down line, so Im guessing he'll try the power vs. power thing that worked oh so poorly back at the Joe earlier in the season. Of course, that was when guys like Iginla, Tanguay and Aucoin were playing like they were hung over.
The real question may be - what defensive duo gets the Zetterberg match-up? Regehr-Sarich makes sense, although they've been somewhat less effective than the Aucoin-Phaneuf pair (who, not incidentally, play a lot with the Iginla forward unit). According to the new Behind the Net stats, Phaneuf has been absolutely stellar at suppressing opposition scoring (0.93 GA/60***) with Aucoin not too far behind (1.37 GA/60) while Sarich and Regehr haven't fared nearly as well (2.36 and 2.97 GA/60 respectively). So does Phaneuf roll against the big boys tonight? If so, it'll be worth noting how he fares.
Overall, it may not matter as long as Warrener and Eriksson**** are kept far, far away from the Red Wing's big guns.
***(these stats don't include the most recent game against Nashville. The current GA/60 rates are likely lower than those listed since the Preds didn't score any ES goals last game.)
****(He really sucks ass.)
The Wings certainly seem to be the class of the West so far, but they aren't invulnerable. The Flames have traditionally played well against Detroit in Calgary (won 4 out of 5 contests in the Dome last year), not to mention the fact that the Wings only beat the woeful Oilers by the narrowest of margins a few days ago. Zetterberg et al. didn't beat up on Grebeshkov and Gilbert at ES, so there's definitely hope (again, as long as Eriksson and Godard are restricted to brief shifts against Aaron Downey all night). In addition, Hasek is out and Kiprusoff is past his now annual 12 game warm-up period. Osgood's stats are decent so far, but he's still a long bet to out-duel Kipprusoff - especially since the Flames suddenly own the most potent offense in the Western Conference.
Prediction - Flames 3, Wings 2. Iginla, Langkow and Huselius for Calgary. Holmstrom***** and Datsyuk for Detroit.
*****(On the PP of course).
*(how lucky** do I feel that I snagged both Crosby AND Henry in my Flames blogger pool?)
**(by lucky I mean, of course, brilliant.)
It'll be interesting to see what strategy Keenan favors this evening. The Flames don't really have a shut-down line, so Im guessing he'll try the power vs. power thing that worked oh so poorly back at the Joe earlier in the season. Of course, that was when guys like Iginla, Tanguay and Aucoin were playing like they were hung over.
The real question may be - what defensive duo gets the Zetterberg match-up? Regehr-Sarich makes sense, although they've been somewhat less effective than the Aucoin-Phaneuf pair (who, not incidentally, play a lot with the Iginla forward unit). According to the new Behind the Net stats, Phaneuf has been absolutely stellar at suppressing opposition scoring (0.93 GA/60***) with Aucoin not too far behind (1.37 GA/60) while Sarich and Regehr haven't fared nearly as well (2.36 and 2.97 GA/60 respectively). So does Phaneuf roll against the big boys tonight? If so, it'll be worth noting how he fares.
Overall, it may not matter as long as Warrener and Eriksson**** are kept far, far away from the Red Wing's big guns.
***(these stats don't include the most recent game against Nashville. The current GA/60 rates are likely lower than those listed since the Preds didn't score any ES goals last game.)
****(He really sucks ass.)
The Wings certainly seem to be the class of the West so far, but they aren't invulnerable. The Flames have traditionally played well against Detroit in Calgary (won 4 out of 5 contests in the Dome last year), not to mention the fact that the Wings only beat the woeful Oilers by the narrowest of margins a few days ago. Zetterberg et al. didn't beat up on Grebeshkov and Gilbert at ES, so there's definitely hope (again, as long as Eriksson and Godard are restricted to brief shifts against Aaron Downey all night). In addition, Hasek is out and Kiprusoff is past his now annual 12 game warm-up period. Osgood's stats are decent so far, but he's still a long bet to out-duel Kipprusoff - especially since the Flames suddenly own the most potent offense in the Western Conference.
Prediction - Flames 3, Wings 2. Iginla, Langkow and Huselius for Calgary. Holmstrom***** and Datsyuk for Detroit.
*****(On the PP of course).
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