It's been an odd couple weeks in Flames land. Calgary's won a couple games that they should have lost (SJS, DET, DAL) and lost a couple of game they probably should have won (COL, ANA). Frankly, it's hard to decide which trend to find encouraging.
First couple of minutes aside, I thought the Flames were the better team last night. On the road against a club like ANA and missing a player like Tanguay, that's no small accomplishment. Some supporting guys have looked pretty decent recently, including Lombardi, Boyd, Nolan and Vandermeer. Huselius is still snake-bitten as hell and I haven't noticed Langkow much the last few games. Also, "The Leap" which seemed evident in Phaneuf's game back in October, has been back in evidence recently.
Of course, you can glean all the positives you want from the last couple losses, but the fact is results are all that really matter at this point in the season. As I mentioned in the previous post, the Flames tread a thin line between a NW division title and missing the play-offs entirely. Moral victories seem encouraging, but are entirely useless at this stage of the game.
Calgary against the Coyotes this evening. The short turn-around means the flu ripping through the team will likely still be a factor. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to see Kipper on the bench again for this game. CuJo has played pretty well since his shaky debut against the Oilers, so Iron Mike might as well give a recovering Kipper the night off.
Given that he really struggled against the Yotes the prior time the two teams met, I feel obliged to mention that Cory Sarich has SUCKED recently (recently meaning the last 4 or 5 weeks). He may be sick and playing through some broken chicklets, but that hasn't been true of his entire slump (including the last game against PHX), so Im not going to grant him the benefit of the doubt. Since the start of February, Sarich is -6 in 14 games, only garnering a net plus rating in 3 of those contests. Sarich is now a minus player for the year overall (-1, -3 @ ES), despite playing a majority of the time Robyn Regher. Sure, he plays the tougher match-ups, but that's what he was brought in and paid (3.6M/year) to do. He's partnered with an elite player in this regard and adds nothing in terms of offense: his last point came on December 9th (!) and the Flames ES GF/60 with him on the ice is a paltry 2.07, lower than guys like Dustin Boyd (2.13) and even Regehr himself (2.72) somehow. In short, Cory is useless if he isn't shutting guys down and that's precisely what he's failing at right now. A turn-around in his play would be pretty damn helpful. Starting tonight, in fact, so the Flames can avoid giving up the embarrassing Peter Mueller natural hat trick.
Prediction - Iggy takes control and pots a couple. Flames win a close one, 3-2. Iginla (2) and Lombardi for Calgary, Rhino and Jovo for the Yotes. Also, Carcillo will fight someone and get some kind of misconduct.
