Completely Hammered

Uhm, how long is indefinite?

2010-10-07T12:49:00.003-04:00

With the new season on the horizon (well actually, its much closer than that), I figured I'd best chime in on the Flames and my opinion of how the boys look this season...

New guys?

I guess the first thing that everyone has been talking about for the last couple months has been the additions (re-additions?) of Olli Jokinen and Alex Tanguay...

I honestly can't complain about this too much, given the cap problems that the team has, and how much we ended up paying for them compared to the contracts they had in their previous tenures with the team. I'm not about to say that the Flames got them at a discount (since if they were worth more they'd most likely have gone somewhere else), but if they can recover some of their previous glory (obviously previous to their last stint in Calgary), then maybe they can be a functional part of this team. Of course, I also said this about Bertuzzi and his 'discount' season in Calgary. Uhm, nevermind...

Former Leafs, really?

Growing up in the heart of Ontario, and having lived at the Center of the Universe for the last 8 years, I've been subjected to way too many hours spent discussing things such as which Leaf is going to lead the league in scoring, what is the best Stanley Cup parade route, which NHL superstar is getting traded here next, what did Mats Sundin have for lunch, is Wendel Clark gay, and on and on...

Between that and the 'trade' back in 1992, I'm not exactly a Leafs fan, but for some reason I know every little detail about everyone who has suited up for them and why they either going to be great or awful. And it is usually the latter...

I am always hard-pressed to think of a single former Leaf who went on to greater things somewhere else. It seems that they were either stars coming in that faltered and then recovered, or they were never really destined to be stars at all...

So why do we have so many of them (and we seem to just keep on picking up more)?

Injury bug? More like injury elephant...

You know the situation is getting bad when you have to pick up a washed up former Canuck to round out the middle of the roster just before the season starts...

Langkow is out, Stajan is out, Kotalik is out, Moss is out. I mean seriously, we had cap trouble already and now we have to find a way to find replacement players before opening night? And we don't even know how long they are out for. But hopefully they can be back by November when Kipper actually starts playing...

Preseason? We talkin' 'bout preseason?

Well at least heading into the regular season with a bunch of injuries, we can fall back on out undefeated record in a bunch of glorified scrimmages. I mean, its good to see that we may finally have a little depth (well, not really), but I'd be a lot more confident going into the opener tonight with a full, healthy lineup. But at least our scrubs can beat the Oilers' scrubs...

Speaking of the Greasers...

The real season starts off tonight in Northern Alberta (to use the NFL's way of classifying cities), and the game actually gets a national broadcast on CBC. Albeit at 10:00 EST, which means I'll continue my current practice of staying up until at 1:00 in the morning for at least one more night. Who needs to be productive at work anyway (which is where I'm typing this right now)...

I don't know what to tell you about the greasers that you don't already know, or for that matter you probably know more about them than I do. But just wait until January, when I can tell you all about the Leafs...

Loser City

2010-04-30T22:55:00.001-04:00

I got this off a friend on facebook, but its just too funny not to share...

After I got over the initial hurt that is... ;D

In Defence of Matt Cooke

2010-03-13T14:10:00.005-05:00

After Matt Cooke took Marc Savard out for the remainder of the season with a questionable hit the other night, there was a lot of talk amongst fans and the media as to how many games he would be suspended...

It seems like nobody is on this guy's side except for Colin Campbell...

Heck, his own teammate Bill Guerin spoke out against what he did, so he could probably use a friend...

But I'm here to even out those odds, even if it is just by a minuscule fraction...

Wait, no I'm not...

I hate that guy...

Let me back up a little...

When Matt Cooke played for the Canucks, as my brother and I were watching the games I'd often comment on how dirty this guy was, and how he always seems to be going for the player and not the puck, and usually in ways that weren't exactly above board...

I mean, I love a grinder as much as the next guy, but this guy wasn't just going hard into the corners for the puck, he was leading with his elbows...

And he wasn't just trying to poke at the puck when somebody was skating towards him, he was also sticking out his knees...

People talk about how cheap players like Sean Avery and Jarko Ruutu are, but at least their intentions are blatantly obvious and it usually revolves around pissing off the other team's guys enough to draw a penalty...

The whole time I've watched games when Matt Cooke was on the ice, all I've seen is him trying to intentionally take players out of the game...

This isn't the first time he's dropped his shoulder to hit an opposing player in the head, and it sure as hell won't be the last. Especially since he didn't even get a slap on the wrist for taking a star player out of the game for the rest of the season...

Colin Campbell said that a precedent had been set when Mike Richards wasn't penalized for a similar hit earlier in the season, but there is a big difference between Richards and Cooke. Mike Richards may play with a little bit of an edge, but its not like he's a fourth line player on the ice just to shut the other team's offence down one way or the other...

I know that there are always guys you say that you hate to play against, but would love to have on your team. Corey Perry and Jarko Ruutu are two names that come to mind when I think of that kind of statement. They play with an edge and can get under the skin of the other teams...

But nobody should ever be saying that about Matt Cooke, and it looks like even Bill Guerin believes this. I've been watching Matt Cooke for a long time and I've never seen anything that could be called a redeeming quality in this guy's game. Even his goals are cheap...

I just can't believe the East coast bias is so bad in sports that it took him moving to Washington and Pittsburgh before the rest of the NHL's fans finally realized how much of a stain this guy leaves behind...

Make sure you find a place to watch the Penguins - Bruins game next Thursday, if Cooke is man enough to step up for what he did...

Is that the best you could come up with?

2010-02-23T18:29:00.007-05:00

It seems that the cool thing to do leading into the game tonight is to criticize Team Canada about how they needed the shoot-out to beat the Swiss and then fell apart against the Americans, with Martin Brodeur taking the brunt of that...

I'm not exactly going to deviate from that, but I'm not going to stick everything on Brodeur's shoulders either...

As a goaltender myself, I know there are some times when you feel it might help out your team by taking a little chance and it ends up biting you in the ass. I have no idea how many times I've tried to do a fancy little move only to have the puck end up in my own net, but one season my team was actually counting on it happening about once a game (I'm not horrible, I make some fantastic saves, but sometimes I would try things that bordered on complete lunacy if we were up by a bunch)...

So I'm going to give Brodeur a bit of a break on this one...

Although I still wouldn't start him tonight or against the Russians tomorrow night...

Actually, I'd probably play Luongo for the first tonight and then stick Marty in when we have a nice little lead...

Or maybe a nice big lead...

No, my biggest problem is with Stevie Y's insistence on grabbing certain guys just because they play (or played) on the same team as certain other guys...

And Scotty and Chris aren't the only pair I'm talking about here...

Actually, I'm going to list the connections (only by position, as in I'm not listing Richards and Pronger together, or Fleury and Crosby) and give them a grade and a blurb explaining it...

Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger (Anaheim and formerly with Anaheim) ~ D+
- These guys played together for years and I'm not sure if that was a part of the reason that Stevie Y and his management team decided to put them both on the roster, but it really shouldn't have been. As I mentioned last post, Scotty looks like he's lost a bit and I really don't think he can play at this level any more (NHL for sure, Olympics, not so much). I don't think I really have to say much about Pronger at all. Sure he's big and plays with an edge, but he might be the only other guy on the ice that's as slow as Joe Thornton...

Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook (Chicago) ~ B+
- I was originally against this one, as it was widely reported that one of the biggest things going for Seabrook was that he played with Keith. But Seabrook has been one of the only good surprises on this Canadian team. It would have been an A, but they aren't even being paired with one another in the tournament, so the whole reason they got put on the team together goes right out the window...

Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry (Anaheim) ~ B-
- The Corey Perry selection was also one that I was originally a little confused by, but again, there was the connection with a linemate to push him over the edge. And speaking of edge, that's exactly why I'm not too uncomfortable with this pairing selection. Perry has always been an aggressive forechecker, which is one of the reasons I've always kind of hated the guy when he wasn't playing for my team. I just wish the team management had more defined roles for all the players heading into the games, as I think putting these two on a checking line with Bergeron or Richards might be fairly effective. And could really piss off the other team...

Dany Heatley, Patrick Marleau, and Joe Thornton (San Jose) ~ C
- I know what some of you may be thinking right now, and yes, they have scored a solid chunk of our goals. In the first period. Which is where my biggest problem comes in, and its not really entirely their fault, but they really should not have been getting the lion's share of the ice time late in the game against Switzerland, nor should they when the games are close. When I look at that line, all I see is choker - choker - choker. Just think of every playoff series you've seen these guys play. Or not play, when you think about it, as they tend to disappear. You'd think that Mike Babcock would know this, although, in all fairness, his Red Wings didn't get a chance to put them out last year, as Anaheim did that as an 8 seed (and yes, I know that Heatley didn't play for San Jose last year, but he has a reputation for stinking it up when it counts too)...

Oh yeah, and Joe Thornton is really, really slow...

I mean, I love the guy, but...

2010-02-18T19:26:00.003-05:00

Okay, I know this may raise a few eyebrows, but I was kind of just wondering...

Why is Scott Niedermayer playing for the Canadian Olympic team?

I know, I know, he's played for our country at every level, and he's won at every level. Heck, he's won at every level he's played at including the Memorial Cup when he was in the CHL...

But why is he leading our men's team in this year's Olympics?

Its not like we are lacking for experienced leadership, just look at Iginla or Pronger for that...

Its not like there isn't a handful of much younger, equally able defencemen available like Jay Bouwmeester or Robyn Regher...

He's not as quick as he used to be, and from what I saw in the first game, he's not as defensively sound as he used to be either...

So why is he there? Just so Stevie can feel good about having one of his old buddies in a relevant role?

I thought we were trying to go forward in the youth movement, not backwards...

That Oughta Do It...

2010-02-02T18:27:00.003-05:00

Well, if something was going to knock me out of my funk the day I came back from vacation, this would pretty much do it...

I've lived in Toronto for about 8 years now and over the years I've acquired a lot of friends and acquaintances who are huge Leaf fans (if that is really possible) and are quick to tell me every rumour about the Leafs picking up everyone from Peter Forsberg to Roberto Luongo. When you throw in the fact that my hometown a couple hours to the north is also polluted with them (yes, I did mean polluted), I've pretty much lived my life surrounded by them and I've been very vocal about my love for the Flames...

Which leads me to Sunday afternoon...

I spent last week in the Dominican Republic where I had no idea what was going on in the NHL (which, given the recent play of the Flames was probably a good thing), and I had just gotten home that morning...

So after a few hours of sleep I was reading through my emails and my buddy Tim calls me. I don't usually hear from him too much, unless he wants to make a trade in our fantasy pool or he's blabbing about who the Leafs are picking up now...

So it starts out the same way as every other time...

"Hey buddy, how's it going?"

"We really need to get together for pints some time in the next couple weeks..."

And then he drops this one...

"Your boy Phaneuf is a Leaf now, eh?"

Of course, I consider the source, so my first response is "uhm, yeah, I'll believe it when I see it..."

Which is about when I am stumbling over to Facebook where another buddy of mine starts talking to me over instant messenger about the same thing...

And then I see all the status updates...

And finally the links...

Crap...

But let me clarify a little...

Its not so much that Phaneuf got traded...

Its not that the Flames didn't get a big name back...

Its not even that he got traded to the hated Leafs (well, pitied Leafs lately)...

After just coming back from a week in the sun, where hockey was one of the furthest things from my daily thoughts...

Its that I had to find out about it from about twenty Leaf fans at the same time!

Olli sure could use a friend right now...

2009-03-09T14:48:00.006-04:00

Defending the defenceless?

Sounds like a noble cause, doesn't it? Until you realize that I mean that he can't play defence as opposed to can't defend himself...

I've spent a fair bit of my time all over the Flames blogosphere lately trying to defend the Olli Jokinen trade from deadline day (which the rest of the NHL deemed a great pickup for the Flames, but then again, they don't know Lombardi like we do). I've been arguing that this could be a great addition for Calgary, but he needs one big thing to happen first...

Calgary's walking (skating?) wounded need to return from the injured reserve to bolster a lineup that is remarkably weakened right now, what with having no second line whatsoever. When Langkow returns to the Flames lineup, and hopefully Bourque sooner than later (Bertuzzi can take his time), I have a feeling that the Flames will see a bit of a resurgence in scoring. When the LA Kings brought in Wayne Gretzky, it marked a huge up shoot in points for Bernie Nicholls, who got shifted back to the second line and had a record year of 70 goals and 80 assists, up from only 78 points the season before (and he subsequently got traded to the Rangers halfway through the next season). Now, I'm definitely not saying that Jokinen is anywhere near the talent level of Gretzky, but I do think he is closer than Lombardi (nor do I think Langkow is as good as Hollywood Bernie, nor would he wear a hot pink suit). But I have always been of the opinion that having a second solid scoring line will do wonders when it comes to forcing opposing teams to pick one line to defend over the other...

One complaint about Jokinen that was heard often on trade deadline day was his reputation as a clubhouse cancer, especially in regards to how he deals with the younger players, but I just don't think he had a solid example to learn from. I tried a few times to demonstrate that he hadn't had a solid leadership example to follow during the developing stages of his career (admittedly sometimes more effectively than others), and now that he is in an organization that seems to be hemorrhaging leaders with Iginla, Regehr, and Conroy to an extent, he won't be looked upon for that role. When he was with the Panthers, he didn't really have anyone and I don't think he knew what he had to do when he was thrust into the spotlight there...

Sure Jokinen will never be the own-zone presence that Lombardi was, but we have other guys on their way up that can take over that role (I'm looking at Boyd and Nystrom here). I don't see anyone in our immediate pipeline that can add the scoring touch that Jokinen has always exhibited. And I don't consider Backlund on the same level yet...

And you know he has to be happy to be playing somewhere that hockey is very much a part of everyday life (at least, he's happy right now)...

The Flames played horrible in the last couple of games on the road, but that can't be attributed solely to Jokinen. Let's see what he can do against the Devils in Jersey tomorrow night against a good (great?) goaltender and a team that plays solid defence. Not to mention a real playoff contender...

For now I'm still trying to reserve a little judgement...

Looking at the pick ups...

2009-03-04T13:01:00.004-05:00

So far it looks like the Flames have grabbed a couple of players to make the push toward the playoffs and to strengthen the injury-depleted lineup...

Calgary re-acquired blueliner Jordan Leopold from Colorado for a guy they claimed off waivers yesterday, a prospect that's playing in the 'O', and a second round draft pick they got off of Montreal in the Tanguay deal. Which is a little of a full circle thing, since the Flames sent Leopold to the Avalanche in a trade for Tanguay in the first place...

Can't really complain about this deal at all, since the boys didn't really give anything up from the current roster...

The Flames also picked up Olli Jokinen from the Phoenix Coyotes in return for sending Lombardi, Prust, and a conditional first rounder back to the desert. Which re-unites Jokinen with Mike Keenan, who should be able to control Olli's apparent clubhouse cancer reputation...

Its tough losing Lombardi, but he wasn't really living up to the potential we all had for him (although he has been playing well of late, which may have helped in the deal). Prust is out for the season, so it doesn't really take away from the Flame roster at this point. And the first round draft pick is at Calgary's option as to whether its this year or next year, but I'm thinking you take that option for this year (given the fairly high finish they are looking at), rather than take the risk of placing even better next year (which they would be very hard pressed to do). The only way you don't is if you have a player that you really want still left in the draft this year, but when you are picking in the 24-27 range, I don't really see that happening...

Also of note is that the Flames still have to do something to clear up the cap overrun that they just created...

Deadlines...

2009-03-04T11:05:00.004-05:00

To Deal or not to Deal

With the arrival of trade deadline day, I figured it was time for me to ignore one deadline to concentrate on another. The last couple of months I've been working towards a huge deadline at work, where I've been asked to do 3 years worth of work in only 6 months...

So you'll have to excuse me for not chiming in lately, what with working overtime and still playing hockey five days a week. My mind just wasn't into it. I could probably have written something while watching the games, but at that point I was just content to sit there and not think...

So over at Five Hole Fanatics, Kent has a little contest going to see who can guess the first player that Darryl Sutter trades for leading up to the deadline. Now this 'contest' started over a month ago, but as everybody knows there hasn't been a whole lot of action on the trade front since then...

The major problem being that there isn't a whole lot of separation when it comes to the playoff bubble and the teams at the bottom of the rankings. At one point in the Western Conference a few weeks ago, the 15th place team was only 5 points out of a playoff spot. So most teams are still trying to figure out if they are a buyer or a seller...

Even now, there is only a 10 point difference in the Western Conference between St Louis in 12th (64 points) and Vancouver in 5th (74 points). Even Colorado at the bottom of the West is only 11 points out of 7th place, but with only 18 games remaining and that many teams left to jump, they are essentially out of it...

The Eastern Conference is a little bit easier to figure out, with a bottom tier of 5 teams including the Islanders, Thrashers, Lightning, Senators, and Leafs all being pretty much out of it at this point. But that still leaves 10 teams vying for 8 spots with only a month to go in the season, and there is only 9 points separating Buffalo (69 points) and Philadelphia (78 points)...

If I had to make a decision in regards to buyers, sellers, and standing pat, the lists would look like this...

Standing pat: Sharks, Red Wings, Bruins, Blackhawks, and Devils...

Sellers: Islanders, Thrashers, Lightning, Senators, Leafs, Avalanche, Coyotes, Kings (okay, those were the easy ones), Blues, and Ducks (they are on the bubble and have been dropping a lot lately, not to mention that they have the fewest games left)...

Buyers: Flames, Canucks, Blue Jackets, Oilers, Predators, Stars, Wild, Capitals, Flyers, Canadiens, Panthers, Rangers, Penguins, Hurricanes, and Sabres...

They don't look so bad...

2009-01-19T12:59:00.002-05:00

While watching the Flames get beaten by 'a team that they should destroy' on Saturday night, I couldn't help but notice that this year's Phoenix Coyotes squad looks a lot like last season's Chicago Blackhawks...

A lot of young, early first round draft picks surrounded by some experienced guys that you feel are still a little bit too young to be called veterans. When a team is so bad for such a long time, you know that one of these years, if they make decent draft choices, they will eventually get out of that basement and become a legitimate contender (note: not a favourite)...

It happened with the Penguins a few years ago (although they seem to be struggling a little right now), then it happened with the Blackhawks last year, and this year it seems to be happening in the desert...

Granted, you occasionally get those teams that can't seem to pick up the right guys and seem to stay on the bottom for eternity, like the Islanders, Kings, and Thrashers, but those teams also don't tend to hang onto their young guys long enough to see how they can mesh together. Either that or they tend to draft players that start their careers off overseas instead of in the North American farm system...

The Phoenix roster only has six players over 30, the oldest being Ken Klee, born in 1971. And two of them just turned 30 in the last 6 months (Derek Morris and Olli Jokinen). The other three guys, all born in 1976 (the same age as me, incidently), are Steve Reinprecht, Ed Jovanovski, and Shane Doan. Not a bad bunch of 'veterans' to have on a team at all..

And three of those 'over the hill' guys have expiring contracts (Reinprecht, Morris, and Klee)...

Not to mention that a good chunk of the key young guys (Turris, Mueller, Boedker, Hanzal, Tikhonov), all still have at least one year left in their entry contracts...

This team is going to be very good next year, and I'm actually thinking that they will be a tough team to face down the stretch, as they start to gel more and more...

No longer just another notch in the win column...

Yes, I may have a problem

2009-01-15T22:58:00.004-05:00

So a friend of mine sent me an email on Monday afternoon, asking if I would play net for a friend of hers on Tuesday night for a pickup hockey game on some ice they'd rented. My Tuesday night hockey league doesn't start up until next week, so I said "Sure, why not!"...

At which point you are probably thinking, "yeah, that sounds rational"...

But maybe I should be more specific...

The pad of ice that they had booked was from 8:30 to 10:00... outside... down by the beach, where its nice and windy... and the windchill took it down to a nice and toasty -25C... and did I mention I'd be playing net, which meant very little moving around for extended periods... and I was travelling over an hour to go do this... and it was just pickup...

I was actually all ready to go, with my bags packed and everything, when I called to ask if my brother could come too (he's not a goaltender, so he's not quite as crazy), when my friend told me it was cancelled since there was a mixup with the permit... but some people were still going to head there regardless...

If I lived closer, I most likely still would have gone...

And now you are probably wondering why I told this story and what it has to do with the Flames...

Its quite simple really, when you think about it...

As I sit here typing the Flames-Sharks game is playing on the TV beside me. If I'm home and Calgary is playing, its on television, I don't care what time it is. This game didn't start until 10:30 EST, and yet I'm going to stay up until its over, blowout or not...

Oh yeah, I also play hockey four nights a week, sometimes five. I actually PVR'd the CHL prospects game. Last year I went to a hockey game in Aurora because a kid my brother teaches is supposedly a phenom in the vein of Tavares or Spezza (did I mention he's still only 10)...

So yes, I may have a problem...

Getting the bounces

2008-12-10T13:41:00.002-05:00

The Flames are in Detroit tonight for a game against the Red Wings after a tough loss in Montreal last night. Which was made even tougher for me, given that I was watching the game with a Habs fan…

When the Flames played the Red Wings a couple weeks ago, I thought that they played a pretty solid game, even carrying the play at times against one of the more solid teams in the league. The final 5-2 score of the game didn’t really reflect what was happening on the ice that night…

The same could easily be said for last night’s 4-1 loss to the Canadiens. At points in the game Calgary easily looked like the better team on the ice, but then they would get into penalty trouble and les Habitants would take over the momentum. Between a hot goaltender in Halak, and some bad bounces for the Flames, they lost by three goals again in a game that they were not overpowered in…

Which means that one of these days they’re going to get the bounces, right? It’s a rule of nature, isn’t it? You can only have bad luck for so long…

Having games on back to back nights in cities that are over 800 km apart (over 500 miles) has got to be rough, not to mention going from playing one of the top teams in the league to playing one of the top teams in the league. And there’s the question of whether Kiprusoff will be between the pipes for a second game less than 24 hour of finishing his last one, or if Keenan will opt to go with McElhinney, who didn’t exactly shine in his last outing…

I’m not expecting a lot tonight (kind of like how I haven’t expected a lot from Bertuzzi this season), but if the boys play like they’ve been playing the last few weeks, and they finally start getting the bounces, they could actually pull of the upset…

That being said, I still think the Red Wings take this one 4-2…

HD or not HD?

2008-12-05T21:15:00.003-05:00

That is the question.

Whether tis nobler to suffer through the hard to watch Flames broadcast on Sportsnet in something below regular definition, or to take advantage of a Blues broadcast in HD on Fox Sports Midwest...

Actually, there is no question...

Sportsnet West has HD, I've seen it. And if they had tonight's game in HD I'd choose that broadcast over the brilliantly clear one that I'm watching right now. Maybe...

As has been mentioned numerous times by WI (hmmm, actually looking for a recent reference, but can't seem to find one), the Flames team on Sportsnet just seems to be a little less than par. John Kelly and Bernie Federko in the press box? Okay, why not. Its always nice to hear people that aren't Charlie Simmer, John Garrett, or Roger Millions. Sure Kelly seems a little lacking in his hockey knowledge, but how is that any different from Millions?

The funny thing is that I'm relatively new to the Calgary broadcast team, only starting to watch games with regularity last season. I guess in some aspects I wasn't missing out...

But this is just one of the few bonuses I get from living outside of the broadcast zone. I'd much rather the chance to watch with fellow Flames fans, like is happening in Calgary tonight, even if they do have to suffer through the Flames broadcast team and don't get commercials for the casino with the world's loosest slots (don't read that too fast or you might get the wrong idea)...

Busy, busy busy...

2008-12-04T13:09:00.003-05:00

So its been a while since I last posted (again), but I have been keeping up with the goings on of the blog world, as well as catching as much hockey as I can. Sometimes your schedule just gets too full and you end up being home only one night a week (if that), and you just want to sit around and not think while watching the players skate around on the screen in front of you...

The last two months have been like that for me. I've been watching the games, pleasantly surprised by the play of this team as of late. They are applying a lot of pressure on the opposition and seem to be outplaying most teams, even if the scoreboard doesn't represent it. I thought they played extremely well against the Red Wings a couple weeks ago and the loss was a hard one. The 5-2 final score was not indicative of how the Flames played...

You can see the farm boys, especially Moss and Boyd, are playing well, and I was even impressed by the play of Pardy the other night. Its beginning to appear that Keenan finally has the team running the way it should after almost a season and a half...

I'm even impressed by Conroy and Primeau's play in the face-off circle(s). Its nice to see Lombardi finally getting to centre the top line after missing a month. The new guys that came in (Cammalleri, Bourque, and Glencross) are all contributing in their respective roles, and I'd even say that Bourque is doing much better than I expected him to coming into the season...

I'm going to be gone for the latter half of this month (away from the internet and even farther away from all Flames games), but I felt I should at least touch base...

The Flames are exciting to watch again, even when they lose. Prairie hockey is back in Cowtown...

Out of the gate

2008-10-19T15:01:00.010-04:00

Strong starts?

So I was thinking about how we're always hearing about how strong the Flames have been in the first period this season, and I figured I'd take a quick look at the numbers. Not all the numbers mind you, just the shots and goals for the first five games of the season, by period. Just to get an idea as to how strong their first periods are, compared to later in the game...

Game 1: 6-0 loss to Vancouver

Period	1	2	3
Shots	9-5	10-7	6-11
Goals	0-1	0-2	0-3

Game 2: 5-4 OT loss to Vancouver

Period	1	2	3	OT
Shots	11-7	9-18	7-6	2-3
Goals	3-1	1-2	0-1	0-1

Game 3: 5-4 win over Colorado

Period	1	2	3
Shots	12-10	15-5	8-14
Goals	3-2	0-1	2-1

Game 4: 4-3 loss to Edmonton

Period	1	2	3
Shots	8-15	9-12	12-8
Goals	1-1	1-3	1-0

Game 5: 3-2 loss to Edmonton

Period	1	2	3
Shots	17-3	6-14	10-10
Goals	2-0	0-3	0-0

Total after 5 games: 1-3-1

Period	1	2	3	OT
Shots	57-40	49-59	43-49	2-3
Goals	9-5	2-11	3-5	0-1

Its too bad we couldn't just call the games after the first 20 minutes, since then the Flames record would be a very respectable 3-1-1...

As has been stated in numerous posts (but not in any of mine), Keenan can't seem to leave well enough alone and appears to like to switch things up between periods. I know you have to be able to make in game adjustments, but when what you are doing is working, it should be the other team that makes the changes. Keenan's attempts at pre-emptive line changes isn't throwing the other teams off, it looks like its just making it easier for them...

Back to back battle! Again!

2008-10-17T11:15:00.006-04:00

Once more unto the breach!

Canucks last week, and now the greasers in a back to back this weekend? I guess they want to get the divisional races heated up a little early in the season. It can't really get any worse than what happened last weekend, can it?

My hate-on for the Oilers has grown again these last couple of years, what with them becoming somewhat respectable again... Wait, that's not the right word... I can't bring myself to actually respect them... How about the Oilers have become somewhat competent again... much better...

Anyway, the Flames host the kids from up North at the Saddledome tonight, and then take Highway 2 to the Rexall Centre tomorrow for the second game...

At least I'm assuming they'll take Highway 2. But it might be a nice time of year to take the long road through the parks... Which reminds me... The Tim Horton's in Hinton doesn't offer hot chocolate... Which I find kind of weird, since its just outside Jasper and you would think that if some parents were taking their kids through the parks in the colder months, they would like to have a hot liquid option for them to drink... Because I'm assuming kids in Alberta don't drink coffee, do they? Maybe that's why prairie kids are such gritty hockey players... And they probably drink it black, straight up... I'm sure that the Tim Horton's in Vulcan probably only serves black coffee, no double doubles allowed (do they have a Timmy's in Vulcan?)... Or maybe I'm just overthinking this...

Regardless, I will not be around to catch either game, as I'll be Oktoberfesting it up in Kitchener-Waterloo... In fact, I'll probably be three sheets to the wind (five or six actually), by the time the puck even drops on either night...

I would think of recording the games on my PVR (which was so lucky a couple of years ago), but I'm sure my brother would be more than a little skeptical of me taping an early season hockey game, regardless of who is playing in it... Although he did record the start of the Habs-Bruins game a couple nights ago, while muttering something about 100 years and Patrick Roy's jersey... I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention...

I know I should probably go to a bar and watch the game instead of a big fest-hall, but Oktoberfest only happens once a year! Its not like its a date that I can put off for a day or two...

Here's hoping the boys win tonight at least, as otherwise there is apparently a decent chance that Mike Keenan could be fired just four games into the season...

Don't worry about it... yet...

2008-10-14T23:11:00.007-04:00

Where is Sean Connery when you need him?

It seems that at the beginning of every season lately the Flames are floundering around looking like they are still playing preseason games. I've gotten so used to the boys losing for a good section of the first month of the season, that I thought I'd look and see just how bad they have been in the previous five seasons...

Now most of you have probably realized by now that stats based articles are not my forte (which is kind of funny to me when I think of how many stats courses I took in university). So I kept this one simple...

I just took the October records for the Flames and compared it to the rest of the season for the years 2002 to 2007. I also did a quick check to see how they started out the month in each year by showing the first four games...

October 2002: 3-3-2-0
Rest of 2002/03: 26-33-11-4

October 2003: 4-4-0-1
Rest of 2003/04: 38-26-7-2

October 2005: 4-7-0-2
Rest of 2005/06: 42-18-0-2

October 2006: 3-6-0-1
Rest of 2006/07: 40-23-0-4

October 2007: 6-3-0-3
Rest of 2007/08: 36-27-0-4

As you can see, last year was the first time that the Flames had a positive record in the month of October since Sutter and Kiprusoff came to town. But if a loss was a loss regardless, they only broke even. And obviously the 2002 season doesn't really fit in since it was when the Flames were still horrible, but I threw it in anyway...

But even last year's anomaly fits in when you only look at the first four games, you can see that they usually start very poorly (with a loss, in fact)...

2002: L, L, W, T
2003: L, W, W, L
2005: L, W, L, L
2006: L, W, L, W
2007: L, L, L, W
2008: L, L, W, ?

I fully realize that I am selecting my data to corroberate my hypothesis (since they won 3 of the previous 5 fifth games and tied another), but that wouldn't change where I'm going with this anyway...

At least I think I'm going somewhere with it...

Basically, relax, cause its only October. Not much of a revelation, I realize, but I was curious about the numbers, and I'm sure that some of you may have been too...

Yeah, it'd be nice to get a good jump out of the gate, but that wouldn't be the Calgary Flames' style...

And you have no idea how much of a pain in the ass it was to create that mock movie poster...

Update: it looks like the boys picked up their first W of the season tonight over the Avalanche...

Update 2: it also looks like Leanne beat me to the punch... which is probably one reason why I shouldn't have spent the better part of last night working on that damn poster...

Hockey's Back! (And so am I)...

2008-10-10T01:01:00.005-04:00

Easing my way back into it...

Hey, do I have any readers left?

Yeah, I apparently took the summer off, as well as a good portion of the spring and the first few weeks of fall...

Been kinda busy and I just wasn't feeling it, you know? But with the start of the first Calgary game of the season, I'm refreshed and back on the boat (in the chair, whichever)...

I had a few posts all drafted up and ready to go, one on guys that I can't stand, which I will probably edit and post later on. I had a post on the Festival Cup here in Toronto at the beginning of September that I only had to add my photographs to. There was a significant Flames presence there, so I may just post it with its backdate and if you are really bored at some point you can read through it (I may post it tomorrow, if I remember)...

Actually, as I type this the Flames are down 5-0 with only 7:30 left in the third period. The boys are not looking sharp tonight. They had a pretty good first, but couldn't solve Luongo and the F@%^ing Canucks built on a couple of quick goals to start the second. Have I mentioned how much I can't stand the Canucks? I have? Oh, nevermind then...

There are a bunch of things I should really get around to voicing my opinion on, which I probably will, when the topic comes up again...

But in the meantime, welcome back! And let's just hope the Saturday night game in Calgary goes a lot better...

Update: 6-0 final... ugh...

Postgame - 2008 Festival Cup

2008-09-06T14:03:00.011-04:00

Hockey's Back! kinda...

Yeah, I know I've been gone for a while (well, the whole summer and a good portion of the spring actually), but now that I've been to a hockey game at an NHL rink I can officially say that the hockey season has started...

Last night my brother and I attended the Festival Cup at the ACC. I know it wasn't an NHL game, but there were NHLers playing in it, so that's good enough for me (especially since there were some Calgary Flames, current and former, on the rosters). Besides, the game was set up to raise money for Right to Play, and there were even some NHL caliber plays...

As an added bonus, the teams were also decked out in the old Flames jersey template...

Team #1 (White Jerseys)

Coach: Karen Percy-Lowe

Captain: Doug Gilmour (Toronto Maple Leafs)

Players: Sean Avery (Dallas Stars), Jim Balsillie (Blackberry), Cameron Bancroft (Hockeyville, Little House), Tom Bernard (President, Sony Pictures Classics), Mike Cammalleri (Calgary Flames), Andrew Cogliano (Edmonton Oilers), Jim Cuddy (Blue Rodeo), Mike Green (Washington Capitals), Curtis Joseph (Toronto Maple Leafs), Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking, Juno), Robyn Regehr (Calgary Flames), Tim Robbins (Mystic River, The Shawshank Redemption), Graeme Roustan (Bauer), Craig Simpson (Edmonton Oilers, Hockey Night in Canada), Jason Spezza (Ottawa Senators), Jason Thompson (General Hospital), Scott Thornton (NHL Free Agent), Wojtek Wolski (Colorado Avalanche)

Team #2 (Red Jerseys)

Coach: Kevin Lowe

Captain: Mats Sundin

Players: Luc Robitaille (Los Angles Kings), Jennifer Botterill (Canadian Women’ National Team), Tim Connolly (Buffalo Sabres), Mark DeCarlo (Raising Helen), Kris Draper (Detroit Red Wings), Andrew Ference (Boston Bruins), Oren Koules (Saw, Two and A Half Men), Nick Kypreos (New York Rangers, Rogers Sportsnet), Lochlyn Munro (Smallville, CSI, Dead Man on Campus), Gary Roberts (Tampa Bay Lightning), Derek Roy (Buffalo Sabres), Joey Scoleri (Hollywood Records), Sami Jo Small (Canadian Women’s National Team), Matt Stajan (Toronto Maple Leafs), D.B. Sweeney (The Cutting Edge, Jericho), Joe Thornton (San Jose Sharks), Jeremy Williams (Toronto Maple Leafs)

Just from a quick glance at the rosters I knew I'd be cheering for the white team, especially given the presence of Lowe behind the red bench...

Now obviously this is a charity game, so there was plenty of hijinx (including Tim Robbins wearing an Obama 08 jersey for the second period), but some of the celebrities actually had some skills. Now some of the Canadian ones you would naturally expect to be competent, like Cameron Bancroft and Lochlyn Munro, who both had dreams of playing in the NHL until they got injured in their teens, but other guys like Tim Robbins I would have never expected to be as good as he is. Of course, there were also a few guys out there that really shouldn't have been, like Scoleri and Reitman. I think my mom can skate better than they can...

This wasn't really a game so much as it was an organized scrimmage. Sure there were referees and they were keeping score and all, but there was a serious lacking when it came to defensive zone play, not to mention actually following the rules...

During a Tim Robbins penalty shot, the refs moved the net from behind Sami Jo Small and he just shot the puck in the dead centre of the net, as it was in the corner of the rink...

You could actually tell the Tim Robbins was really the centre of attention for the night, as he also beat the crap out of Nick Kypreos...

And Sean Avery was being Sean Avery, which is probably why he switched jerseys with Jason Reitman for the third period, since he felt that he was being unfairly tragetted by the officials...

Obviously with this game being at the ACC, they had to find a way to make fun of the Senators and get the crowd into it. Which they succeeded in doing by using the 'kiss cam' and a guy in a Sens jersey, with a girlfriend that obviously had no interest in being seen with him...

But perhaps the funniest and most notable occurence of the evening involved new Flame Mike Cammalleri. Throughout the third period the crowd was repeatedly reminded that in the event of a tie, the game would go to a shootout. With the scored tied 8-8 with less than a minute left, that seemed to be inevitable. Then Cammalleri came down the ice and potted one with about 13 seconds left, and as the spotlight shone on him, you could tell he knew he wasn't supposed to do that. Which was even more obvious when Bill McCreary waved the goal off, even though everyone KNEW it went it. But the best part of it all was the Cheshire Cat Grin on Cammalleri's face...

Oh, and not that it really matters, but the White team won...

San Jose at Calgary: Game 4 preview

2008-04-15T20:32:00.008-04:00

Very Superstitious

This is a common thing in sports, especially in the playoffs, and most especially in the Stanley Cup playoffs...

I'm a little bit superstitious myself, as I stopped shaving after the series began last Wednesday night, and I don't plan on shaving my beard off until the Flames are out (of course, I'm not sure how that will go over at the weddings I'm to attend in late May and early June, but I'll take that risk)...

Of course, I can't let it run roughshod, as a beard should be maintained on occassion, so I figure that everytime the Flames lose a game, I'll give it a little trim so as not to turn into Jake Plummer. Yes, I realize that a number of hockey fans won't recognize this reference because he is the former quarterback of the Denver Broncos but he was reknowned for bringing the neckbeard back in vogue. Actually, that's not true, as a neck beard hasn't been considered stylish since the Dark Ages (probably because they couldn't see them?)...

Which brought to mind a number of other things that Flames bloggers have done over the last year or two that have absolutely no effect on the actual game itself (but somehow give us a little piece of mind). From me recording all of last years games on my PVR and watching them later, to WIs various jersey issues, to HGs pizza, and so on and so on, we just can't seem to stop...

But then it stops working (not that it really worked in the first place), so do we stop? No, we just start doing something else, which is the funny part. Since I watched the first game and have absolutely no recollection of the second game (I was really drunk downtown and didn't get home until after 3:00, so I assume that I watched the game, but I don't remember the game even starting, let alone finishing), I figure that I need to watch the game live for the boys to win (which is ironic when you think of last year), so I watched the third game and we won. Looking for a repeat tonight...

I was actually reading an article about player superstitions earlier, but you can't compare a fan's superstition to that of a player, as the player's might actually do something to affect the game. If talking to his goalposts calmed Patrick Roy down, and relacing his skates before every game helped Ray Bourque clear his head, then who am I to argue...

And I don't expect to stop doing it anytime soon, especially since I need to keep my beard in case I get called up for game 5...

First round preview

2008-04-10T11:13:00.009-04:00

Better late than never...

Everybody else has put their playoff picks for the first round already (and many for the eventual Stanley Cup champions), so I figured I had better post mine before its waaaay too late (but don't worry, even though the playoffs actually started last night, the results do not affect my original picks)...

Western Conference

(1) Detroit Red Wings vs. (8) Nashville Predators

This is probably the easiest matchup to predict of them all, although it does contain a few question marks. Do the Predators start Mason or Ellis in net? Is Hasek healthy enough to make it through a round without giving over the net to Osgoode? Will Nashville still be in the playoffs when David Legwand is ready to return to the ice? Can you imagine how many more people would be excited right now if the team was in Hamilton or Kitchener-Waterloo?

With the way that the Red Wings dominated the NHL this season, you can't help but pick them to run rough shod all over the Predators...

Detroit Red Wings over the Nashville Prey in 5 games (I'm thinking that Nashville will steal one somehow)...

(2) San Jose Sharks vs. (7) Calgary Flames

As Matt over at the Battle of Alberta has pointed out, the Flames are a pretty decent team when they aren't down a man or two (or up one in some cases). Since the playoffs tend to make the refs put their whistle away a little more (as they should), I think this actually bodes well for their chances. Sure they aren't exactly a high scoring powerhouse and for the most part may have played above their talent level for a few stretches this season, but there are a few players who still haven't turned it up to 11, and seem to be heading that way (I'm looking at you Kipper and Lombardi). They started the season off poorly, but have been looking ready as of late. Not to mention that the young guns of Nystrom, Hale, and Boyd look like they are finally getting the NHL game speed figured out (to my eyes anyway), so they shouldn't be nearly as easy to play against as they were to start the season (or even a few months ago)...

Everyone is talking about how the Sharks are a shoe-in to win the Western Conference since they dominated the last quarter of the season to pull within throwing distance of the Red Wings, but I'm not convinced of that in the least. Sure they played well, but who were they playing? They had an 18-0-2 stretch (they lost their last two games away after they'd clinched their playoff seeding), where they only won 2 games by more than 2 goals (4-1 over the Blues and 5-2 over the Kings), and 10 of those 18 wins were only by one goal. Their two overtime losses were to non-playoff teams, and 4 of those wins were against Eastern Conference teams who play a style that they won't see until the finals, if they can get there. I think these guys are more over-rated going into the playoffs than Brad Richards (he's making that much money because of what exactly?)...

I'd also take Mike Keenans playoff experience (I don't care how long ago it was) and general hockey knowledge over Ron Wilson's any day...

Calgary Flames over the San Jose Guppies in 6 games...

(3) Minnesota Wild vs. (6) Colorado Avalanche

I don't suppose that both of these teams could lose this one, eh? No? Well, I had to ask...

I can honestly say that I'm not cheering for either team in this one, as I steered pretty much clear of it in the playoff pools that I am in, mostly due to how close the series will be (which can most easily be seen by last night's game going to overtime). Colorado has more flash and star power, but no backend. Theodore has been almost lights out for the last month or so, but Backstrom has been consistently good all season. The Wild play a game that would bore a turtle, but they know how to control the game when they have the lead. Which is why I have to pick the Avalanche, as they seem to get all the bounces and I don't really see where Minnesota can protect a lead it can't get in the first place. But it'll be down to the wire...

Colorado Avalanche win over the Minnesota Tame in 7 games (come on, you knew it was coming)...

(4) Anaheim Ducks vs. (5) Dallas Stars

Gee, Todd Bertuzzi versus Mike Ribiero... I wonder which guy I'd rather cheer for...

Each of these teams actually has a special place in my hockey memories, the Ducks for screwing over the Oilers in the whole Chris Pronger debacle, and the Stars for owning the greasers for so many playoff series in the late 90's and early 00's (I don't what else to refer to that time frame as)...

This year though, I have no particularly warm feelings for either team, as one annoys the hell out of me and the other one bores the hell out of me. But a simple look at the team stats points out the glaring difficulty that Dallas has for scoring goals and J-S Giguere isn't going to make that any easier...

Anaheim MIGHTY Ducks send the Dallas Twinkles packing in 5 games (the name may have changed, but it just doesn't sound right)...

Eastern Conference

(1) Montreal Canadiens vs. (8) Boston Bruins

Alright, so apparently Boston has had a major problem with Les Habitants for the last year and and a half, which obviously leads me to think that that 'performance' will continue...

When I look at the Bruins lineup, regardless of all of the ex-Flames on it, I just don't see anything to make me think that Boston has what it takes to beat a powerful Montreal team that has been lighting it up for the last half of the season. They just don't have any fire power...

Montreal wins in 6

(2) Pittsburgh Penguins vs. (7) Ottawa Senators

As much as I respect what the Senators have done in the last five years (the series against the Leafs excepted), they just don't have the same team that made it to the Stanley Cup finals last season. They seem to have lost a fair bit of grit, which means that I don't think they have what it takes to beat a young, spirited team in the first round...

Pittsburgh in 6

(3) Washington Capitals vs. (6) Philadelphia Flyers

As much as I'm still not a believer in Ovechkin just yet, Huet has played phenomenally since he was acquired from the Habs, and the rise of Mike Green has been a huge boost to this young roster as well. As gritty as the Flyers are, I just think that the Capitals are destined to make it to the second round at the least...

Washington in 7

(4) New Jersey Devils vs. (5) New York Rangers

I'm not sure exactly what to say about this series, other than that the Rangers got 15 out of a possible 16 points in the series this season, so as much as I love Brodeur, I just know that the team from Manhattan seems to own the boys from across the Hudson...

Rangers in 6

Pengrowth Saddledome vs Rexall Centre

2008-03-26T11:11:00.008-04:00

This will have to do...

After attending games in Calgary and then Edmonton on back-to-back nights a couple of weeks ago (both against the Blues), I'd originally intended on writing up a blog entry on each game. Especially since each game had a record breaking goal in it. On the Monday night in Calgary, Jarome Iginla scored his 365th goal as a Flame, to take the club lead ahead of Theoron Fleury. On the Tuesday night in Edmonton, Andrew Cogliano became the first player in NHL history to score an overtime goal in three consecutive games. There is no telling the next time that the Flames will have a player breaking the club goal lead (both because of Iginla's lengthy career left ahead of him, and the fact that there doesn't appear to be anyone in the system right now to challenge him for it), so that was a big milestone to be at. When it comes to Cogliano's record, it requires a lot of chance just to have back-to-back-to-back overtime games, let alone have one player score the decider in all of them. That record may never be broken...

But I've been so ridiciulously busy since then with hockey of my own (tournaments and league play and pickup), that I just haven't had the time and/ or energy to sit down and get it done. Now with it being so long ago, I've decided to just merge the two and compare the experiences in the same post...

Location

I know that this is a big point of contention for the boys up North, especially with all of the talk going on right now over the building of a new arena complex in the city core. If any of you have been over the the Battle of Alberta blog in the last year and a half, you've more than likely seen Grabia's coverage of every nuance of the proposal...

But I'm just going to cover my experiences with what is in place right now...

The Saddledome is located just southeast of the downtown core, and is just a few minutes walk from the c-train (Calgary's rapid transit system). There is the infamous connection to the Red Mile, which is just down 17th (albeit, it is a little ways down 17th from the Saddledome with a fairly 'interesting' area inbetween them). The fact that it is on the Calgary Stampede grounds means that there is ample parking on well-maintained lots while the Stampede is not in use. Given that a very significant portion of the population take advantage of the transit system and also the bars on 17th, there didn't seem to be any traffic issues before or after the game...

The Rexall Centre is located to the northeast of Edmonton, well removed from the city core. The parking areas were not overly well maintained and walking to the arena required being consistently at the mercy of the elements, as there was no coverage. As well, the arena itself is situated in such a way so that anyone going to the game only had a few apporaches to the building due to the necessity of crossing major roadways, which led to large crowds moving slowly together across bridges and such. And don't even get me started on how long it takes to get out of the parking lots after the game...

Advantage: Saddledome (and that doesn't even take into consideration the view of Calgary when you are leaving the arena)...

Pregame, intermissions and postgame

Before the Calgary game, when the team was on the ice doing there warmups, Dion Phanuef kept on coming in on the net from different angles and at different speeds and put it just inside the top right corner of the net on every shot. I'm putting this down because it seemd that no matter how far out he was from the net at the time he took the shot, he was able to put it exactly where he wanted to. I was reminded of this after seeing his goal in the Vancouver game last night, where he picked the top left corner as he was streaking in on Luongo...

There wasn't a whole lot different between the Calgary and Edmonton pregames, beyond the flames in Calgary, and the use of a big oil derrick in the entry of the Oiler players. And speaking of which, they could really stand to light it up a little better. They have a great prop, but it would definitely benefit from a little more in the way of pyrotechnics or at least better lighting...

In terms of what happened on the ice during the intermissions, there isn't a whole lot to write home about (the typical Timbit hockey stuff), beyond the irony of Edmonton having shootout competitions for their first one. When I saw this I just about busted a gut...

Off the ice however, my brother and I were a little stunned when we walked into the concourses in Edmonton. Usually whenever I go to an NHL game, people do the same thing between periods. They use the bathroom and then go get a beer and/ or something to eat and then bring it back to their seat. But Edmonton reminded us a lot of a small town rink. There they don't head right back to their seats, but instead they hang around in the concourse, or even sit at tables provided and talk with other fans until the next period starts. It was weird...

In terms of postgame stuff, both teams did the usual three stars thing and then everyone left...

Advantage: Rexall (the intermission thing was odd, but in a good way)...

During play

We actually had seats in nearly identical spots for both games (even down to being on the aisle both times), so our vantage points didn't vary. During the game in Calgary I had a kid that looked to be about 6'2" sitting in front of me and leaning forward the whole time. This was a little annoying, so I was pleasantly surprised when we got to Edmonton and noticed that they had notices up on the screens to keep your back pressed to your seat when play was going. And for the most part, everyone did...

There was a lot said during the playoffs a couple of years ago about how loud the Oiler crowd is during a game. When you walk into the Rexall Centre, you can certainly see why. The arena is tiny and is actually well built for amplifying sound. That being said, I thought that the Calgary game was more consistently noisey (in a good way). Granted, whenever they flashed 'I can't hear you!' at Rexall, the place suddenly got deafening... for about 5 seconds...

There also seemed to be problems with the out of town scoreboards in Edmonton, as they seemed to freeze on the score for the Anaheim-Phoenix game for the majority of the night. There was nearly a full slate of games that day, but it was hard to follow what was going on outside of the arena. I realize that we were there to see the Oiler game, but you still should be able to follow other games going on that night...

Advantage: Draw (Rexall impressed me with the seat thing, but I was equally unimpressed with the oft-advertised 'noise' and the non-functioning out of town scoreboard)...

Intangibles

On the way into the Flames game we picked up a program for $5. On the way into the game at Rexall, they handed one to both my brother and I, and after asking how much, we were told they were free. Imagine that, giving out a free keepsake that would help you follow the game better. Colour me impressed...

I realize that Rexall is a very old building in NHL terms, but I think I saw more concrete there than at the LeFarge plants west of Calgary. This seems to keep with the small town rink feel that I commented on before, but it killed the excitement a little. I want to be impressed when I walk through a storied building, no bored...

On the way to our seats in the Saddledome, they were giving out 4X7 hockey cards of Dion Phaneuf to the kids and apparently to the attractive girls as well. Which was kind of cool and made me wish I had brought along an attractive girl instead of my brother (but only for a second, as I like hanging out and watching hockey with my brother). But it was all good afterwards, as some people didn't feel the need to keep them (for shame!), so I managed to pick up a couple of them...

I realize that this doesn't really fit in anywhere, but it was also cool that the Flames had Theoron Fleury in the building that night to congratulate Iggy on his 365th goal on the big screen...

Last season (or maybe it was early this season), I remember WI talking about pocket dawgs on her blog and figured that whenever I made it out to a game in Calgary I would have to have one. Having now partaken in the odd cuisine, I was impressed. You think its just a hot dog, but they somehow taste better. And the burgers on sale outside the rink after the game were also very good...

Advantage: Saddledome

Final Tally

The Saddledome takes it! You didn't honestly think that I would let Edmonton win, did you? But I will concede that it did go into overtime and give them a point...

I'm sure I'm forgetting a number of things, in which case somebody will have to remind me and I may have to do some editing...

Postgame - Lethbridge

2008-03-11T12:39:00.001-04:00

Stupid Rules...

On our continuing travels around Alberta, my brother and I got tickets to the Hitmen game on Sunday which pitted them against the second best team in their division, the Lethbridge Hurricanes (Calgary is obviously the top team in the division)...

Before I really get into the game, which I will, I'd just like to set the scene a little bit, by telling you that we were sitting five rows behind the players benches, at centre ice (so we were actually right behind the 'professional' photographers). Oh, and I have a pretty decent camera of my own...

The first thing that I noticed heading into the game was the overabundance of children, which makes a fair bit of sense when you think about it in terms of the price of the tickets and that many of them are probably too young to know the real difference between a WHL game and an NHL game. There was also a large number of Lethbridge fans (it seemed like half the city was there, as one group of them took up the better part of one of the sections), which meant for a loud game no matter which team did anything...

The first period was a bit of back and forth, with Lethbridge opening up the scoring only to have Calgary tie it up shortly thereafter. Then the Hurricanes scored again late in the first, only to have the Hitmen knot it up before the end of the frame...

The second period continued the pattern of back and forth play, with neither team really looking like it was owning the other, although if I had to give the edge to one team, it would probably be the Hitmen. That is, until a massive defensive breakdown right before the second intermission, when the Calgary blueline was nowhere to be seen as a Lethbridge player skated in alone and gave the Hurricanes their third lead of the game heading into the final frame...

Which is where I take a brief sidestep from the game itself. Throughout the first two periods I had been predominantly using my telephoto lense, since my regular lens doesn't give a whole lot of an advantage over a regular digital camera. At the beginning of the second intermission the usher for my section came up to me and asked how many millimetres my camera was, which I thought was a little odd, but I was in a pretty good mood, so I told him, '300'. To which he responded 'How many?', followed by 'Can I see it?'. At which point I probably should have said no, as I'm not overly fond of people I don't know touching my camera, but I handed it over to him after which he told me 'You'll have to come with me...'

Over the course of the walk to Guest Services, he told me that there is a restriction on lens size due to some licensing fees for professional photographers. Apparently the RCMP tours the arena as well, and if they had caught me I could have been arrested. For using my camera. In a public place. To take pictures of hockey players. Seriuosly...

Apparently they are worried about people taking shots during the games and selling the photos. They have obviously never seen any of my pictures. Nor have they ever tried to take pictures through the glass...

When we finally got to guest services, which was on the opposite side of the rink (with the usher carrying my camera the whole time, which Im still a little ticked about), the nice people hanging out there (all 7 or 8 of them), seemed to be impressed with the size of my, uhm, lens. After finding out that I also had a regular 18-70mm lens, Carla, the nice young woman in charge, told me that I didn't have to check my lens for the remainder of the game as long as I promised to not use it anymore. And if my usher had a problem with that, he could take it up with her (apparently Guest Services people are better at dealing with people than ushers, although I know that he was just doing his job...

This was the first time I'd ever heard of this though, as I walked in with my camera bag on, and nobody checked it. I've been to numerous Jays and Argo games with no problems. I even went to a Hamilton Bulldogs game last week with no issue. I'm actually thinking it may have had something to do with being behind that one tiny photographer guy and him noticing my camera and pointing it out to the usher. Must have small-man syndrome as I think my camera was bigger (actually his was probably worth about 5 times as much as mine, especially judging by how much he cowered everytime the play came anywhere near him)...

Luckily I didn't end up missing any of the game, as that all took place in a span of about 10 minutes...

The third period started of simlar to the end of the second. No team really controlling the play, until the Hitmen defence disappears again leading to a 4-2 lead for the visitors and some very vocal Lethbridge fans. In an effort to tie the game late, the home team pulled their goaltender, leading to a 6 on 5 advantage which potted a goal with just under a minute left. Unfortunately, and despite some good chances, the Hitmen couldn't tie the game and Lethbridge walked away after gaining a little ground on the divisional leader...

And since I am typing this in the car on the way up to Edmonton to catch the Oiler game tonight, I'm wondering something. Am I the bigger geek for blogging about a hockey game on a laptop while riding in a car, or is it my brother who actually checked the odometer accuracy on a rental car and reacted like it was going to be close every time he passed one of the markers?

Oh yeah, so to those of you thinking of taking pictures at a hockey game, try to stay at 200 mm or less (that's lens size... get your mind out of the gutter)...

Postgame - Nashville

2008-03-10T00:35:00.000-04:00

At least my surroundings were good...

As some of you may know, I'm currently in Alberta to take in a little hockey while on my vacation (and I'm ever so happy not to be in Ontario right now). And since this is a hockey vacation, I may throw a little extra stuff out there that isn't completely hockey related and you probably don't really care about...

On Friday night my brother and I went to Flames Central where we met up with WI, MG, Rob and Leanne to watch the boys lose to the Nashville Predators. We really aren't good luck for the boys when we gather in large groups, but unless we decide to start getting together for Oiler or Canucks games, I don't really see a way around this (maybe we'll just have to wait until they wrap up the division and the games don't mean as much). Unfortunately, Rob had to jet before the game even started to take care of famiilial obligations, and Leanne missed the start, but it was good to get together to meet some more members of the Flames blogosphere and have a few pints (which were a little pricey, but apparently not nearly as expensive as they used to be). And I'd have to recommend the Club sandwich, which was pretty good, as were the fries that came along with it...

The atmosphere was pretty good, as it seemed like pretty much everyone in the place was a pretty solid hockey fan, even if the ones that got up on stage during the intermissions knew less about the Flames than my Habs-loving brother. And it was pretty neat seeing a huge room full of Flames fans booing the Oilers in the early game...

The Flames game itself wasn't overly inspiring, as the boys looked slow again, which may be why I have a difficult time remembering everything (of course, it may also be due to the fact that I'm typing this out a few days later)...

Semi-Live Blogging Trade Deadline Day

2008-02-26T10:33:00.045-05:00

Crap, I'm stuck watching the Sportsnet coverage for a second year...

Alright, so apparently I had a little trouble getting back into blogging after my vacation (not to mention that the last few weeks have been very busy). But I'm back now and I'm dedicated to posting on a consistent basis (at least until my next vacation, which is to Alberta in about two weeks). I figure that blogging the trade deadline (despite having no expectations of the Flames doing anything) would be as good a spot to start as any...

Oh, and I can't get the TSN broadcast, so I'm stuck watching Sportsnet here at work again this year. And unlike Onrait, I actually have another job to do, so updates may be far between at times...

4:10 - Alright it looks like most of the deals are done. Time for me to check out what everyone else has written...

4:00 - G Jean-Sebastien Aubin from Los Angeles to Anaheim for a 7th round pick in 200? - Depth move, from the looks of things. I'm actually curious as to which team cleared the most roster space today though, as it looks like Los Angeles made a bit of a push to catch Tampa and Columbus...

3:57 - D Marc-Andre Bergeron from Long Island to Anaheim for a 3rd round draft pick in 200? - Like Brad Stuart, this is his second deadline deal in a row. That's gotta suck, I wonder if he's even going to unpack this time...

3:55 - LW Chad Kilger from Toronto to Florida for a 3rd round draft pick in 200? - I liked him when he was in Montreal... and that's about all that I have to say on that...

3:50 - G Al Montoya and LW Marcel Hossa from New York to Phoenix for G David LeNeveu, RW Fredrik Sjostrom, C Josh Gratton, and a conditional draft pick - A number of young players in this one, but nothing that really stands out. Neither of these teams looks to be a real playoff contender, so it looks like Phoenix is trying to get a couple of good young guys, while the Rangers look to be adding a little depth...

3:32 - I love listening to the Canucks broadcasters argue about how unhappy the Vancouver fans must be that they didn't really do anything... Between that and Matt Cooke leaving town, I'm almost ecstatic...

3:29 - D Christian Backman from St Louis to New York for a 4th round pick in 2008 - Another good young player I won't be able to watch when I'm in Alberta next month. Yaaayyyy...

3:24 - D Brad Stuart from Los Angeles to Detroit for a 2nd round pick and a 4th round pick - Stuart gets traded at the deadline for the second year in a row. I hope he's just as unproductive in Motown as he was in Calgary last year...

3:22 - LW Chris Simon from Long Island to Minnesota for a 6th round draft pick - I wonder how many games Simon will actually hit the ice for...

3:13 - Oh yeah, and the deadline passed at 3:00, but as everyone knows, deals could keep coming in for the next few hours... Oh, and apparently (there that word is again) Adam Foote is getting on a private jet right now to head to Calgary to try to make tonight's game... crap...

3:02 - RW Marian Hossa and LW Pascal Dupuis from Atlanta to Pittsburgh for LW Colby Armstrong, C Erik Christensen, prospect Angelo Esposito and a 1st round draft pick in 200? - Wow, the Penguins gave up a lot of youth, but it looks like they are most definitely making a push for the cup this year. I'm very curious as to how the boys over at PensBlog will react to this one...

2:45 - D Hal Gill from Toronto to Pittsburgh for a draft pick in 200? - The Leafs lose another defenceman. I think the only way the Leaf blueline gets better today is if McCabe gets traded away too...

2:39 - LW Kristian Huselius and RW Bill Guerin have been traded for LW Scott Hartnell and RW Miroslav Satan - Oh wait, that just happened to me in my money pool and its still pending the commissioner's approval...

2:25 - Apparently the Thrashers have traded Hossa to the Penguins... I didn't even know they were in the hunt for a player... of course, I've lost my feed yet again, so I'm pretty much just guessing at this point...

2:14 - Okay, if you aren't going to listen to the broadcast from early on, don't everybody try to jump on at once. All the people in Alberta on their lunch break seem to have decided to overload TSN and Sportsnet at the same time and I've lost my feeds. Actually, my Sportsnet feed goes in and out every couple of minutes, which may be even worse, as I catch snippets but not enough to know what they are actually talking about...

1:58 - John Garrett just referred to the abundance of 3 point games by calling it the Nobody Hardly Loses league... clever...

1:44 - LW Matt Cooke from Vancouver to Washington for LW Matt Pettinger - I'm so sad to hear that one of the players that I despise is not only leaving the Northwest division, but the entire conference. However will I survive... And I love it when they talk about Canucks' players getting hurt...

1:42 - D Rob Davison from Long Island to San Jose for a 7th round pick in 200? - Oooooooooooh...

1:17 - C Sergei Fedorov from Columbus to Washington for D Ted Ruth (Notre Dame) - Now I'm starting to wonder if Columbus and Tampa have a competition going to see who can clear more of their roster by the end of the day...

1:09 - Looks like I lucked out this year and Eklund is no longer with Sportsnet. Sweet!

1:03 - D Adam Foote from Columbus to Colorado for a conditional 1st round pick in '08 or '09, and a 4th round pick - Apparently (and yes, that is one of my favourite words) the Blue Jackets have decided to dismantle after losing out on the Brad Richards 'who wants an overpayed star' sweepstakes and send their captain to a team that is currently only one point up on them in the standings. Wow, talk about giving up. Fortunately, I think its damn near impossible for Colorado to get their new players into the lineup before tonight's game in Calgary...

12:57 - RW Martin Lapointe from Chicago to Ottawa for a 6th round pick in 200? - Looks like the Sens are looking to add a little grit for nothing. You can't really argue with picking up depth before the playoffs...

12:52 - The people at Sportsnet just won't let the Tanguay thing go. Christine Campbell on their broadcast was trying to make a big point out of him not being on the ice for the Flames for the morning skate (she's in Toronto so she probably doesn't follow the Western Conference), but Gord Stellick just pointed out, to those that don't pay attention, that Tanguay took a high stick in the last game...

12:39 - D Ruslan Salei from Tampa to Colorado for D Karlis Skrastins and a 3rd round pick in 200? - Wow, quite the fire sale in Central Florida in the last 24 hours. 'We have too much payroll to be playing this poorly! Everything must go!'... Well, everything that's overpriced anyway...

12:37 - LW Tuomo Ruutu from Chicago to Carolina for LW Andrew Ladd - A whole lot of IR time in this trade. Ruttu was a highly covetted player coming into the league, but hasn't really had a chance to live up to the hype. Andrew Ladd is a player I've heard of...

12:21 - I gotta grab some lunch, I'll be back in 10 or so...

11:55 - G Cristobal Huet from Montreal to Washington for a 2nd round pick in 2009 - Huh, I didn't see this coming. And why did the Habs get so little back? I realize that Carey Price could be the next big goaltender in Montreal, but I don't think this is the right move heading into the playoffs. It looks like Gainey is clearing some space to potentially pickup Hossa, but that is a bold move to put the playoffs on a very young goaltender. Although I may just be a little upset since I have Huet in one of my hockey pools (but he should get more starts and there is word that the Capitals may be making a push for the playoffs - mind you, I have very little faith in that thing they refer to as their defence)...

11:47 - C Brad Richards and G Johan Holmqvist from Tampa to Dallas for G Mike Smith, F Jussi Jokinen, and C Jeff Halpern - This isn't good for the rest of the Western Conference either, but it keeps the overpriced Richards away from Vancouver, so I'm good with it (well, relatively). Oh, and there is talk of Smith being the new starting goaltender in Tampa, which I will believe when I see it...

11:39 - D Brian Campbell from Buffalo to San Jose for F Steve Bernier and a 1st round draft pick - Looks like a solid pickup for the Sharks, who were lacking a puck moving blueliner. Which is a bad thing for the rest of the Western conference... BOOOO!

11:38 - RW Wade Belak from Toronto to Florida for a 5th round draft pick in 200? - as I said before, who cares...

11:34 - Rumours of Brian Campbell going to San Jose...

11:29 - Talk of Wade Belak going to the Panthers, but I don't see either of these teams in the playoffs, so who cares. Oh, and apparently Brad Larson was wearing Hossa's helmet on the ice in Montreal to make a half-hearted attempt at fooling the media...

11:15 - Apparently Atlanta has taken the ice in Montreal for their warmup before their game tonight and Hossa is not out there with the rest of his team...

11:12 - Sportsnet is talking about Columbus getting Brad Richards from Tampa, which would be interesting, as I have often thought that Richards is overpayed down there and his exorbitant contract isn't coming off the books anytime soon. I think they'd be better off getting St Louis...

11:05 - No sign of Eklund yet (Yay!)

10:35 - D Bryce Salvadorfrom St Louis to New Jersey for F Cam Janssen - New Jersey gets some defensive depth and only gives up a guy that's coming off injury and has scored one goal in his short career. I actually thought that St Louis would be more of a threat in the NHL this season, and I wish they were, as I have tickets for them in both Calgary and Edmonton next month. Of course, maybe Janssen will fight Godard...

Trades completed before today (in the last few weeks, and only ones that may actually mean something)...

LW Vaclav Prospal from Tampa to Philadelphia for Alexandre Picard and a conditional draft pick - It looks like Philly is really, really serious about making a run for it and wanted to get their trades done early. With rumours abounding of Bryan McCabe going to Long Island, the Islanders just may be in the mood to help them get there...
D Jim Vandermeer from Philadelphia to Calgary for a 2009 3rd round pick - I guess that Vandermeer was expendable to the Flyers with the acquisition of Modry, so they send him to the Flames for practically nothing where he can get some solid playing time (preferably in the place of Eriksson and Warrener)...
LW Cory Stillman and D Mike Commodore from Carolina to Ottawa for RW Patrick Eaves and D Joe Corvo - Some solid recent playoff experience going to Ottawa in exchange for another young forward and an experienced defenceman. I don't think this will mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, as I don't think it really changes the dynamics of either team...
D Jaroslav Modry from Los Angeles to Philadelphia for a 2008 3rd round pick - Philly is just out of the 8th playoff spot in the East and is looking at making a run for it. Although these trades always confuse me a little, since you would think that LA wants them to fail at that so as to get a higher draft position. Not that 3rd rounders are that highly coveted in the first place...
Oh yeah, and some Forsberg guy is going back to the Avalanche. But this is a TRADE blog, so who cares (I actually do care a little, but I figure he'll be injured by the end of next month anyway - groin and/or ankle, you heard it here first)...

Round up

2008-01-12T14:56:00.000-05:00

Chiming in...

I didn't really post during the Christmas break, as I was watching too much hockey. But there are a number of things on my mind, including stuff that has happened recently, that I wanted to at least mention...

Canada wins the Spengler Cup!

This year's version of the Spengler Cup had a somewhat special significance for Calgary Flames fans, as both Mark Giordano and Andrei Taratukhin were playing, albeit for different teams. Team Canada beat Taratukhin's Ufa Salavat Yulaev squad in the final 2-1. The official Spengler Cup site is a bit of a pain to get through, but from what I could discern from the scoresheets (which weren't complete, especially for Ufa's 6-1 win), both Flames prospects (?) got 2 assists in five games. From the lineup sheets I was also able to figure out that Giordano was in the first pairing for Team Canada and Taratukhin was playing on the third line. Which actually makes sense when you look back at how Andrei wasn't really putting points up on the board when I found his stats a couple of months ago. I may have to look up their respective Russian league stats again in the next month or so...

Curtis Joseph shines on the international stage!

Another story to come out of the Spengler was the play of Curtis Joseph, who everyone knows was looking to use it as a showcase for a potential NHL job. The Russian squad in particular was a very good test for Joseph, especially given the abundance of NHL talent on the squad. Which leads to current stories in the mainstream media about Cujo's interest in playing for the Calgary Flames or San Jose Sharks...

I think that at this point in his career, Joseph is more interested in finally getting that evasive Stanley Cup ring (finally winning international gold being good and all, but really...), than he is in finding a starter's job. When you are already this far into the NHL regular season, the only teams that are really looking for a new starting goalie (if there are any), are probably either so far out of the playoff race that they'd be better off just trying out some young talent between the pipes, or they are looking for somebody to take over for an injured netminder. So I'm not of the mindset that he wants to be a starter...

That he wants to go to a legitimate competitor leaves me to believe that he is willing to accept a backup role where he will get limited starts (especially since the two keepers that he's interested in backing both play the very large majority of games in a season). He would obviously just be a rental and would only be around for half the season, probably at an affordable price...

In my opinion, I think the Flames could really benefit from this, as Curtis McElhinney obviously isn't ready for the big leagues yet (and isn't going to get any better warming a bench spot). Plus, the way the Miikka Kiprusoff is playing right now, I think he could benefit from a little healthy competition from a player that is obviously of NHL calibre (which Curtis is not). I love having the Kippper in net, but I can't help but think that he's a little off right now and could use some help. And I don't think having an AHL goalie backing me up would provide me the motivation to take a couple of games off to fix myself...

Canada wins gold at the World Juniors... again!

Congratulations to the Canadian junior team for winning gold again! There were no Flames prospects on the Canadian squad, but we did get to see an impressive performance from last June's Flames first rounder Michael Backlund for the Swedish team. You could tell that Darryl Sutter was extremely impressed with the youngster's performance...

Team Ontario wins the under-17 tournament!

While I realize that a bunch of young kids that aren't even eligible to be drafted until 2009 is of little interest to most of you, the Ontario team beat the American squad in the final game to win gold. This game did hold some interest for me though, as there was a young kid from Haliburton named Michael Duchene playing for team Ontario, and playing quite well. My hometown isn't exactly known as a hockey factory, as we have only had 3 players get drafted to the big leagues (Ron Stackhouse, Bernie Nicholls, and a kid I know that was taken by the Ducks in the 7th round a few years ago), so this is big news back home. Not to mention that we have another kid that is draft eligible this off-season and expected to go in the first round (Cody Hodgson), that I once helped babysit. Hodgson will be playing in the upcoming prospects game. Both Duchene and Hodgson play for the Brampton Battalion in the OHL...

Flames play as of late less than stellar...

Despite not posting for an extended stretch, I did manage to catch pretty much every Calgary game in the last two weeks. I think teams have really been noticing the tendency for our defencemen to pinch in a lot (I noticed it a number of times last night, and I'm sure every other team has noticed it as well). I think you can probably attribute at least one out of every eight goals against the Flames have come from guys being left alone behind a defenceman, which could explain the team's tendency to give up shorties. That and things like Mike Sillinger's breakaway goal last night as well. The defence has been missing coverages like crazy lately...

I've also decided that I should probably stop my habit of calling out opposing teams' players, as it seems to bite us in the ass all the time. Damn you Trent Hunter!

Gameday - Islanders

2008-01-11T15:05:00.000-05:00

Friday, January 11, 2007

7:00 p.m. MST

Pengrowth Saddledome

Long Island @ Calgary

Sportsnet West, FSN-NY

The New York Islanders roll into Calgary tonight for the first time since January 15, 2002. Yes, you read that correctly, the Islanders are 4 days shy of not being in Cowtown in 6 years. Of course, if the Edmonton game on Monday is any indication, there's a chance they might not show up tonight either...
The Islanders have 3 points in their last 4 games, all from extra time losses. Unfortunately, their most recent 3 games have been against divisional rivals (Colorado, Edmonton, and Vancouver)...
Calgary had a five game winning streak snapped by the Coyotes on Tuesday night in the Saddledome, but this may be just the right team to face to start another one before heading out on the road for a 3 game stint...
Bill Guerin leads the Islanders in goals with 15, which wouldn't have been as surprising if this game took place 5 years ago. And you can say ditto for team assists (20) and points (33) leader Mike Comrie, but then again he does have a pop starlet to impress. Former rookie sensation Trent Hunter seems to have found a way to extend his sophomore slump into his fourth season...
With stunning offence like that, its no wonder that Rick Dipietro was the only one from the fishsticks to make the All Star game (which I plan on posting about tomorrow at some point). Although he did rightfully merit his selection, as he is playing extremely well. Just not Roberto Luongo well (way to go Mike!)...

You could say that the Islanders have much more balanced scoring than the Flames do (since the point differential between the 1st and 8th forward is only 2 points per player), but that would imply that they actually have scoring. Their +/- leader is Blake Comeau with a +4, and that's because he's only played in 11 games (although he did get 4 points, which puts him right up there with the team's ppg leaders). These guys appear to be the Toronto Blue Jays of the NHL, where the only reason that they win games is because of standout performances by their stoppers (I'm comparing goalies to pitchers in this equation, for those of you that I may have lost there), including wins by Dubielewicz while Dipietro was injured a couple weeks ago. Wade Dubielewicz!!!

If there was one game all season that Kipper should most definitely be able to get a shutout in (hell, Mathieu Garon did), its this one!

I pick the Flames to win this one 5-0, giving Kipper the long overdue shutout and topping the goal output from the Oilers. Flames goals by Iginla x2, Huselius, Lombardi, and Smith (dude's putting my last name to shame, even I would have had at least one goal after 34 games)...

Gameday - Coyotes

2008-01-08T19:22:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, January 8, 2007

7:00 p.m. MST

Pengrowth Saddledome

Phoenix @ Calgary

Sportsnet West, FSN-A

Calgary returns home on a tear tonight to face the Phoenix Coyotes, who are in the midst of a 6 game road trip. The Flames has won their last 5 games since the loss in Vancouver two weeks ago. Unfortunately for Calgary, tonight's opponent is also on a bit of a tear, having won their last 4.

The Flames are 12-1-4 since the beginning of December and have climbed back from a 10-13-3 start to take over first in the Northwest division (albeit with a couple of games in hand on the Canucks).

Phoenix is on an 8-2-1 streak since early December, and have pulled themselves out of the Western Conference basement (now solely occupied by the LA Kings) and are within four points of a playoff spot (and if you made all losses into losses, they would still be 2 games above .500 and would be just out of the playoffs with numerous games in hand on most of the teams ahead of them).

Radim Vrbata leads the Coyotes in goals with 24, while Shane Doan tops the scoresheet in assists (23) and points (34).

If the Flames weren't playing so well right now, I'd be a bit more concerned about a hot team coming into the Saddledome, especially one that I'd typically underestimate like the Coyotes. Not that I'm willing to take them that lightly right now, especially with Mueller providing a youthful spark, which the Flames have had trouble dealing with in the not too distant past...

As well as Ilya Bryzgalov has played as of late for the Desert Dogs, I still think Kipper will dominate this matchup. I mean, he has to return to his old form at some point this season, right? Right?

Flames finally get the shutout win (yes, I will keep saying this until it happens) 3-0, with goals from Iginla and Lombardi x2...

Gameday - Ducks

2007-12-29T17:43:00.000-05:00

Saturday, December 29, 2007

8:00 p.m. MST

Pengrowth Saddledome

Anaheim @ Calgary

CBC (HD), FSPT

The defending Stanley Cup champions roll into Calgary on a four game winning streak.
Last time the Ducks were in town, they beat the Flames 4-1 to close out November.
Scott Niedermayer came back out of retirement a couple of weeks ago, but has only supplied two assists in his five games, although you can't discount how his presence back in the lineup has been a boost to Anaheim.
Gigeure is averaging less than a goal a game against in regulation over those five games.
Calgary seems to have lucked out a little bit, in that Samuel Pahlsson will not be dressed tonight for the Ducks, as he is out due to an abdominal injury.
Since finishing off a sweep in a 6 game road trip last week, the Flames have lost two overtime games at home, and then most recently lost to the mailto:f#@kin Canucks on Thursday night.
Corey Perry leads the Ducks with 20 goals, while Ryan Getzlaf paces the team in assists (25) and points (38).

Kipper has been talking about how he needs to step up his game, so I'm thinking this is the game he does it. With Pahlsson out, it gives the Flames a chance to take advantage of the Ducks a little, although the blueline scares me more than a little...

This may sound like a bit of a broken record, but I pick the Flames to win 3-0 tonight, with goals by Iginla, Lombardi, and Tanguay, plus a shutout for Kipper...

Are YOU watching?

2007-12-28T12:57:00.000-05:00

Am I the only person that knows about this?

I'm not sure if anyone else follows the Spengler Cup, but tomorrow morning's game holds some special significance for Flames fans (but I'll get to that in a bit)...

For those of you that are unaware of the Spengler Cup, it is an invitation-only club tournament held in Davos, Switzerland every year over the Christmas break. The host club (HC Davos of the Swiss league), invites one team from three other European leagues (usually from amongst the Swedish, Finnish, Russian, German, Czech, and Slovak leagues), as well as a team made up of Canadian players that aren't playing in the NHL (most are either playing in the European leagues, or aren't currently playing anywhere at all). In addition, the host club is allowed to grab 5 other players from the other teams in the Swiss league...

Each team plays four round robin games (one against each other team), and the two teams with the top records play for the championship...

I've been watching the Spengler ever since I found out about it about 10 years ago...

This years version (in addition to HC Davos and the Canadian team) has clubs from the Czech league (HC Moeller Pardubice), German league (Addler Mannheim), and the Russian league (HC Salavat Yulaev Ufa)...

Which brings me to the main point of this whole post. For those of you that have read my blog with anything resembling consistency may know, Andrei Taratukhin plays for Salavat (who, I feel the need to point out, wear bright green from head to toe). And those of you that have been watching the Spengler, if there is anyone besides me, probably know that Mark Giordano has suited up for the Canadian squad. I realize that Giordano and Taratukhin may have played against each other in the Russian league already, but none of us can get those games...

Tomorrow morning the Canadians play Salavat, which means that we get to see the two Flames that we all wanted with the big club this year face off against each other on national TV. Of course, the game is on tape delay (don't read the sports sites!), so it won't be on until 3:30 pm EST (1:30 pm MST), but that just means we don't have to worry about sleeping in...

Unfortunately, this is a little bit of a conflict with the junior game (vs Sweden at 2:00pm EST), but those of us with a PVR (YAY, THAT'S ME!!!), can catch both in HD. The rest of you may have to settle for catching the second half of the Spengler game (or switch back and forth)...

Gameday - Canucks

2007-12-27T03:27:00.000-05:00

Thursday, December 27, 2007

8:00 p.m. MST

GM Place

Calgary @ Vancouver

CBC (HD)

Calgary returns to play in Vancouver for their first game after the Christmas break.
If you don't know about my personal loathing of the ocean going spawns of satan, then feel free to check my archives from last February.
Hopefully the Flames can continue their play from their last road trip, and not reproduce their recent home stand where they lost both games in overtime.
I'm running late with this, so I'll just say that Luongo is the only player on the Canucks roster that actually scares me in the slightest.

This is brief as the game just started, but I'm thinking it'll be a Flames 3-1 win, with goals by Iginla, Lombardi, and Tanguay...

Gameday - Devils

2007-12-23T08:31:00.000-05:00

Sunday, December 23, 2007

7:00 p.m. MST

Pengrowth Saddledome

New Jersey @ Calgary

Sportsnet West, FSN - NY

New Jersey comes into Calgary tonight, after beating the Oilers in Edmonton on Friday.
Calgary is coming of a tough overtime loss to the Dallas Stars Friday night, in a game were they seemed to dominate play for the last two periods, but had difficulty with a red-hot Mike Smith in net for the Texans.
Zach Parise is the Devils lead in goals (15), assists (20), and obviously points (do the math). Which obviously points to a low scoring team, as everyone knows.
The big player for the Devils is Martin Brodeur, and it seems that it is solely his plays that determines if the team wins or loses. They either win a low scoring game, or they get blown out. There doesn't seem to be an in between.
Iginla was kept of the scoresheet on Friday night (except for his -2), so look for a big game from him tonight.

I won't be able to catch this game, as I'm heading up to Haliburton and my parents don't have Centre Ice (Boooooo! j/k)...

I debated recording it, but I wouldn't be able to watch it for a week, so I'll just catch the highlights...

Given the Devils propensity to avoid scoring goals, I'm thinking this will be a low scoring game...

Flames win 3-0 in a good, old-fashioned, New Jersey barn burner. Kipper finally gets his first shut out of the season, with some support by goals from Lombardi and Iginla x2...

Go Flames!

Postgame - Stars

2007-12-22T14:23:00.000-05:00

Ribiero? Really?

Hmm, I may be partially at fault for the loss last night...

Maybe I shouldn't have made fun of Ribiero...

Although I think Mike Smith played way over his head last night. The guy was phenomenal, and also pretty lucky, as the Flames dominated the last two periods of the game...

The Stars stole one, but we'll get them next time...

We did get a point out of it...

But too many games have been stolen from the Flames this season, so sooner or later they have to start getting the bounces...

And one final thing about Ribiero...

Suck it up and get off the ice, you pansy!

Gameday - Stars

2007-12-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

Friday, December 21, 2007

8:00 p.m. MST

Pengrowth Saddledome

Dallas @ Calgary

TSN, KDFI

The Flames return to Calgary after winning all of their games in a six game road trip, to host the Stars.

Dallas is at the end of a four game road trip, with a 2-1 record coming off a loss in Vancouver last night.

Mike Ribiero is the goals (16) and points (34) leader for the Dallas Stars, with Zubov holding the lead in assists (18). Yes you read that correctly, Mike Ribiero, the Habs cast-off is leading a team in scoring. Maybe the guy does have some skill, but he's probably just faking it...

Marty Turco usually plays well against the Flames (career 1.83 GAA), but you have to keep in mind that he also played against the pre-Campbell trophy winning Flames as well...

Apparently Dallas is the Western conference team against which Kipper has his worst record, so I can't think of a better time for him to steal a game.

Lombardi scored the game winner when these two teams met early in the season.

I'm not a fan of Dallas, with the possible exception of whenever they play the Oilers in the playoffs. Cause then they take up the mantle of 'Second Favourite Team in the Calgary Flames Universe'...

This game figures to be rather low scoring, as I don't see much offense coming from Texas, and the shutdown style of play from the Stars will probably be pretty efficient against a one-line team...

I watched the game on FSN-O on Tuesday night (c'mon, Roger Millions in regular definition or some Columbus homers in HD, which would you choose?), which was interesting. I got to listen to them complain about Nash not drawing a penalty when Hale decided to stop letting him lean on him and Ricky hit the ice. They must have shown it ten times from twenty different angles (or something more mathematically probable), and even my indifferent brother could tell what had actually happened. Heck, I'm sure that if Ricky decided not to take the dive (I'm not sure what kind of dive it was though, the closest thing I could come up with was a cannonball), he may have actually gotten a shot off. Stupid homerism...

Actually, I kind of like homerism. It gives opposing fans something to rant and laugh about...

Yay homerism!

Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to get the Stars feed (as much as I like Darryl Reaugh's work), and I don't think it'd be in HD anyway...

I'm thinking that the Flames winning streak continues tonight and Kipper gets his first shutout of the season (I have to be right eventually, right?) against a low-scoring 'offense'. Flames win in a one-sided barn burner, 7-0. And Lombardi gets a hat trick, including a shortie (doubling the team's output on the season in the category), while playing with somebody other than Conroy and Boyd (Tanguay?). The other Flames goals come from Tanguay (who finally has a centre that can skate), Iginla, Huselius, and Godard (hey, the rest of my prediction is just as unlikely)...

Oh, and somebody will make Ribiero cry (Dion!)...

Go Flames!

Gameday - Blue Jackets

2007-12-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

5:00 p.m. MST

Nationwide Arena

Calgary @ Columbus

Sportsnet West, FSN-O (HD)

The Flames roll into Columbus on a five game winning streak and have a chance to set a team record with six consecutive wins on one road trip...
The Blue Jackets are in the middle of a 9 out of 10 homestand, coming of a 2-0 shutout loss to the Bruins in Beantown (which was their first away game since beating the Flames in overtime at the Saddledome on the first of this month, and their last until the 27th)...
Calgary has actually gotten points in their last 8 games, but in my mind the 2 extra time losses are still losses (but I'll take the points!)...
Columbus is all over the place lately, with wins and losses interspersed all over their record. To look for anything resembling a pattern would be counter-productive (although counter-productivity is a specialty of mine)...
Its a toss-up as to who will be playing in net for the Blue Jackets tonight (well, without actually checking to see if its been posted), as Norenna is coming off the loss to Boston, but Leclaire (who looked so good to start the season), has been more bipolar than the team itself. Which bodes well for our Flames (leading to the next bullet)...
The Flames' big guns have really been producing as of late (I'm sure everyone at least caught the box score for the Tampa game), with the top 4 (Iginla, Langkow, Huselius, Phaneuf), combining for 15 goals and 18 assists in the last three games (including 16 out of 19 points awarded in the Tampa Bay game)...
Kipper has been showing flashes of brilliance (especially in the first two games of the road trip), but still doesn't look like he has rounded into form as of yet...
Rick Nash is obviously the leader of the Blue Jackets, with team highs in goals (18), assists (13), and points (31). He is also in a bit of a drought, not having gotten a point in the last four games, which is either a good thing (streak continues), or a bad thing (it has to end some time). Here's hoping for the former...
Given Columbus' 4th overall penalty kill ranking and the tendency of the Flames to give up short handed goals lately, lets hope for a relatively penalty free game (like the last one, although it did mark another Gordie Howe Hat Trick for Iggy)...

When I first saw that the game was on FSN-O, my first thought was 'Alright, Fox Sports Net Ontario! And in HD!'. Which lasted about two seconds, wherein I made the correlation between Fox Sports Net and Rogers Sportsnet. Which made me feel a little down for a second, until I realized that I'll probably get the HD feed through my Center Ice! Now I'm pumped (and seemingly as emotionally volatile as Leclaire)!

Debating a live blog, we'll have to see how my brother responds to the idea (the Habs play tonight as well, although I don't know if he's going to be home or not). It will likely be a game time decision, but if you see me start, feel free to join in!

Actually, I'd like to take a moment to thank the screenwriters way down in Hollywood for striking, thereby saving me from the contemplation involved in deciding whether to watch a new TV show episode or a live sporting event. I haven't seen this many hours of sports in a week since... ever!

Which is a point of contention for my brother, as he can't sit and watch me yell at the television for 10 1/2 straight hours on Sundays and usually has to go upstairs...

Serious lack of devotion to sports on his part, as its the best reality programming on television!

Wow, I'm feeling good right now, back in the swing of things...

Flames win in Kipper's first shutout of the season, 4-0! Goals from Tanguay, Iginla, and Lombardi x2...

Go Flames!

I used to have readers...

2007-12-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

Introspection

I haven't been updating this site nearly as much as I'd like as of late, and I was trying to blame it on apathy about how poorly the Flames were playing (and something about not having enough time right now, which clearly isn't true). But as the Flames are currently on a five game winning streak (WOOHOO! And on the road, no less!), that clearly isn't true either. My original idea for this blog (or niche, if you will), was to inject some humour and silliness into the hockey blogosphere, since there was plenty of excellent statistical analysis already being done. But I seem to have lost my way a little at some point and tried to make up for it by posting about things I was doing, or meaningless posts about things like power rankings, which nobody cares about (and if they really wanted to know, they could just check them out themselves)...

Wow, I think this post is the most boring one yet...

And a little bit depressing...

I somehow did twice as many posts last February alone, than I've done through the first two and a half months of this hockey season...

And February's the short month!

The ironic thing is that I only got to watch about one in 6 games last season (as opposed to all of them this season)...

Actually, by looking back at the end of last season, I think I may have found the problem...

I seem to have deviated from the path I was on last season, while hockey was on hiatus for the summer...

Time to get back on the path...

Gameday - Chicago

2007-12-09T16:04:00.000-05:00

Wait, didn't I just do this?

You know, I could have sworn that Calgary just played Chicago...

What's that? You say that was over two weeks ago? Really?

Huh, where have I been then? Odd...

I've really been meaning to write more, especially since I added that nifty little widget you can see on the right hand side (or not, if you are like my brother, where he just gets a blank space). Any comments on the widget are more than welcome, by the way...

Anway, I've been pretty busy as of late, not to mention that my free time has been taken up with my planning for a vacation at the end of January (going on a cruise and I'm trying to sort out what all I want to do, which is more fun than talking about how the Flames still can't really play more than one good game in a row)...

My Center Ice cut out midway through the last Chicago game, and I haven't really done much with my blog since. At least with that Nashville game earlier this season, I knew the game wasn't being shown at all, so I was only off-put for a minute and then I got over it. It's a little different when the screen suddenly goes grey and doesn't change no matter how many times you flip back there from the Thursday night NFL game...

I've watched at least parts of pretty much every game since, but I'm beyond wondering how they are always getting caught up on the power play, leading to short-handed goals. With all the bad luck the Flames have had so far this season (hit posts, pucks deflected in off defencemen, the injuries that keep on coming), you just know that it can't last much longer... can it?

I was actually amazed that the game against the Penguins made it to the shootout after Regehr went down and there were prolonged lengths of time with Sarich and Eriksson out on the ice together...

Everyone knows that it takes time to get adjusted to a new coach, but I think that after two months, things should really be sorted out by now...

Which makes me really concerned for Kipper. I don't know what's going on with him, but there is no way he should have a lower save percentage than guys like Dipietro and Fluery, let alone Mason, Holmqvist, and Bryzgalov. Something has to change here though, its just too bad that we don't have an experienced backup that can challenge him a little...

I'm not overly optomistic about the game tonight, as I think the injuries will really show up on the scoreboard, as I see the Blackhawks coming away with a 3-1 win...

Gameday - Chicago

2007-11-22T12:01:00.000-05:00

Hey, that's new!

So some of you may be wondering what that thing I've installed on the side of my blog is (or not, I don't know if anyone else really cares what I put on my site). I received an email yesterday from a company called Schmap, which creates widgets that show a team's schedule, as well as a map of where the team's games are (were). I've never been one to think of myself as a corporate shill, as I usually figure myself to be a bit undermotivated to do things for myself, let alone somebody else, but some things require an exception. Most of the emails I receive about putting things on my blog are asking me to promote something, which sounds a lot like work on my part. But this will save me time and effort (and probably you too), which I think is a good thing. If you want to know the upcoming schedule without navigating your way through other sites, or if you want to know when the Flames are coming to a town near you, its pretty easy. It also lets you know where the Flames won't be playing this season (the Northeast and Atlantic divisions), since they don't show up on the map. In addition, if you click on the game it will take you to the ESPN preview for the game (ESPN still previews hockey games?). All in all, a very handy tool to have...

They are going to use me as a sample site, which mean I could use some feedback from my readers (I do have readers, right?). Of course it also means that I will have to forego my occasional reluctance to post when the team is performing poorly (did you miss me the last couple of weeks?), and I will have to keep the language above board (not that I swear all that often anyway)...

End of corporate spiel... ; D

The Flames have won a couple of games of late (including finally topping the Avalanche), so I'm a little less disgruntled than I was a week ago, and from their performance on Tuesday night, I think they might actually be rounding into shape (of course, I also said that a few weeks ago)...

Actually, on the topic of Tuesday's game, I'm wondering how often Roger Millions over-anticipates a play. At one point in the second period (or maybe the third), when the Flames were in the offensive zone and the Avs got a hold of the puck, he assumed that they would get it out and said that the Avs cleared the puck out of the zone. But they didn't. Rhett Warrener kept it in at the line and dumped it back up the boards to where Tanguay and a Colorado player were battling it out, causing the Rog to proclaim that Warrener kept the puck in the zone for a couple more seconds. Obviously he was assuming that one of the two Colorado players between Retro and Tangs would get the puck and clear it out again. But they didn't and play continued in the Avs zone for another twenty seconds or so, until Theodore eventually covered it. I know that anticipating a play is part of the play by play guys job, and they do guess incorrectly on occasion, but I would think that two sentences in a row is a bit much. You'd think he would have learned after Rhett stopped the clearing attempt, not to assume on the next play, wouldn't you? I'm sure that anyone that was listening to that on radio would have thought that Calgary kept on regaining the zone...

Of course, most of you probably all know all about Mr. Millions already, and I may just be showing off my new and limited exposure to him...

I have mixed feelings heading into tonight's game. The Nolan line is the one that has been producing as of late, which is good, but the top lines have all but disappeared. Iginla is obviously still putting up numbers, but what of Tanguay and Langkow? We need the big guns to get back on the scoresheet with greater frequency. Especially in tonight's game, with one of the only goalies with numbers comparable to Kipper's horrendous start is coming into the Saddledome. The Blackhawks are probably one of the only teams comparable to the Penguins in terms of youth and talent, so the Flames will need to find their feet, as this should prove to be a fast flowing game (unless our blueline can slow them down)...

Flames win 3-2, with goals from Lombardi, Tanguay, and Iginla. Toews and Keith answer back for the visitors...

Gameday - Vancouver

2007-11-08T20:08:00.000-05:00

Excellent!

Time for a little housekeeping before the Flames host the Vancouver Canucks tonight...

I'm not sure if any of you caught any of the pay per view the other night with Theoren Fleury on it, but it was pretty amusing. Somehow it took my brother about 5 minutes to figure out that it was Theo doing the colour (he wasn't talking all that much, and when it did, it was with his typical prairie boy charm). I'd already known that Fleury had gotten into the concrete flooring business and that it was for quality finishes (as opposed to just pouring floors), but I was unaware of this little bit of info...

Are you a fan of Theo Fleury’s? Theo will sign your floor, driveway or walkway – just ask before we seal it!

I don't think I've ever been more inclined to move to Calgary and buy a house (or at least a small piece of land I can pave over)...

I was watching the end of the Detroit - Nashville game the other night and I think I figured out why the attendance is so bad at Joe Louis lately. Once the game was over (Detroit won in a shootout), as the teams were leaving the ice they began to blare this really bad song over the loudspeakers. It was kind of like the Wayne's World theme (the one the studio made for them), but with the words 'Red Wings' in place of the show title. I had to watch it a few times to be sure, but I know that if I was a wing fan, I'm not sure if I'd want to sit around an arena that plays crap like that all night. At least if I watch it at home the play by play and colour guys could drown it out a little bit...

Rascal Flatts covered Tom Cochrane's Life is a Highway for a car commercial that played near the end of the Carolina game the other night. I'm still not sure how I feel about that...

For those of you that are curious, Irene Ryan played Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies...

I had a bunch of other things on my mind, but I can't remember them right now. I may have to update later...

The boys come home after a brutal stretch of games that saw them lose three consecutive times by a score of 4-1. I think the Ocean-going Spawns of Satan back at the Saddledome is just what the doctor ordered...

Of course, I think I'm as curious as anyone as to just who the doctor is that orders all the weird stuff like a beer on a hot day, or a an easy opponent after a hard stretch, or a one night stand after... uh, nevermind...

Anyways, I think the boys are most definitely due for a big game. I'm thinking 6-1 and Lombardi pots a couple...

Gameday - Minnesota

2007-11-03T17:50:00.000-04:00

On the road again...

After a fairly successful 7 game home stretch, the Flames are back on the road again tonight in Minneapolis. The Flames were within a point of the Wild before the loss to the Red Wings on Thursday night (which was one of the worst games I've seen them play this season), but have since lost some ground (as well as being passed by the Avs)...

Not much to report on for this game, and I won't be around to watch it (although I will probably record it). Looking for the defence to step up, as Gaborik and Demitra are back for the Wild so they have a bit of a challenge ahead of them. Its not looking to be the most exciting game, but as long as the top two lines can pot more than 3 goals we have a good chance to take it...

And yes, I did reference a Keanu Reeves movie...

Gameday - Detroit

2007-11-01T12:58:00.000-04:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I've done this before...

Its been a couple of weeks, so I thought I'd check in to see how the Flames have progressed in regards to the power rankings around the sports pages. And yes, as I've said before, these don't mean anything...

TSN now has the Flames at 14, down from 11 last week, but up from 20 the week before. Seeing as I have only missed one Flames game in that time, I'm pretty sure that Scott Cullen has missed them all...

Sportsline put Calgary at 10 this week, as well as last week, up from 13 two weeks ago.

ESPN jumped the Flames up to 8th from 10th last week, but has them at the same spot they were two weeks ago.

Fox Sports seems to be all over the place, having Calgary at 13th this week, down from 11 last week, but an improvement on their 20th place ranking two weeks ago.

Sports Illustrated has the boys from Cowtown at 10th this week, down from 9th last week, but right in line with where they were the week before.

Finally, I've added Yahoo to the list, where they have the Flames at 15th, up from 18th a week ago. No wonder I didn't check them out before. They are also the only site to have the Red Wings at number 1, as opposed to number 2 (despite missing Hasek). And you can't say it has anything to do with their record, as Ross McKeon also has the Penguins at 6th with a worse record). It should be interesting to see where they put the 15th ranked Flames after a win over #1 Detroit tonight...

Overall, Calgary is ranked approxiametly 12th (11.67), down slightly from 11.5 last week, but up from 14.2 two weeks ago. And it should only be going up from here...

Excellent game from Kiprusoff on Tuesday night, as the Flames rolled through the Nashville Predators for the second time in as many games this season. Maybe the contract extension was all Miikka needed to get out of his early season funk...

The Flames host the Red Wings tonight, in what should be an entertaining game. Hasek is out with an injury, but Osgood has been playing well in his stead. Looking for the top two lines to keep rolling and for a little better performance from the blueline than what we've seen previously this season. And somebody needs to stop Zetterburg, as he's scored at least a point in every game so far...

Gameday - Nashville

2007-10-30T16:42:00.000-04:00

So... anything big happen lately?

As I'm sure that everyone in the hockey universe is aware, the Flames have signed Kipper to a contract extension. Details and reactions to which can be found in the Flames blogosphere here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (oh, and here)... [and from Matt]

Good move that keeps him here for what should be his most productive years, although it remains to be seen who else we can keep around after this season. We'll just have to hope that there is a significant cap increase (which I don't really expect), or we're going to lose at least one of Langkow, Huselius, or Yelle and be forced to rely heavily on what we have on the farm. But I do expect Sutter to sign Phaneuf to an extension before the season is out (the better to keep him far away from the open market)...

I'm not going to get too into the game from Friday night, beyond saying that if the rumours are true that McGeough is retiring after this season, it will be at least three years too late...

The Nashville Predators roll into Calgary tonight to take on the Flames. The Flames apparently won the last matchup in Nashville 7-4, but until I see visual evidence I refuse to believe that game ever happened (although I will keep the 2 points regardless)...

Gameday - Colorado

2007-10-26T14:24:00.000-04:00

Just checking in...

As everyone knows, Mark Giordano and Andrei Taratukhin both chose to play in the Russian Superleague this season. As a matter of curiosity, I figured I'd check to see how they are doing over there. Unfortunately I couldn't find a site that would give me anything apporaching in depth stats for players over there, but here's what I did find...

Mark Giordano is playing for Moscow Dynamo. The team is currently sitting in 5th place in the 20 team league with a record of 8-5-5-3 for a total of 39 points (the Russian league uses a 3-2-1-0 point system with regulation win, OT/SO win, OT/SO loss, and regulation loss). Some of his fellow players on the team are Daniel Markov, Fedor Federov, Dmitry Afanasenkov, Jamie Lundmark, and Alexander Kharitonov (leading scorer).

Giordano's stats line is 16 gp 0 g 4 a 4 pts 10 pims ? +/-

Andrei Taratukhin is playing for Ufa Salavat Yulayev. The team is currently sitting atop the Russian Superliga with a record of 16-0-1-4 for a total of 49 points. Fellow players on Andrei's team are Konstantin Koltsov, Alexander Perezhogin, Oleg Tverdovsky, Stanislav Chistov, and Vladimir Antipov (leading scorer).

Taratukhin's stats line is 20 gp 4 g 4 a 8 pts 10 pims +6 +/-

I'm sure that this is a higher level of competition for them than they would get in the Quad Cities, but these numbers aren't exactly blowing me away. I'm very curious about how much time they are getting, and what kind of minutes those are. I realize it is much more than they would be getting in Calgary right now (Taratukhin at least), so I'm not to worried about that, I'm just wondering how its helping their advancement as hockey players. What kind of help are they getting to develop their games?

On to tonight's game where the Flames get to make up for blowing 4-0 lead in Colorado last week. I don't have much of a pregame, as I think most of you have at least as good of an idea as to how Coloardo is doing heading into the game as I do. I am curious to see if Hejduk is back tonight though...

With only one road win for the Avs in four starts (and it was against the Oilers, so it doesn't really count), I'm feeling pretty confident about the boys chances, especially if they can play a complete game...

Flames win 4-1 while I'm out doing some scoring of my own...

Postgame - Wild

2007-10-25T13:05:00.000-04:00

ST's Wide World of Sports

This isn't really a column about the game last night, although it may contain some post-game comments. Its more of a chance for me to reflect on a few things going on in the sports world right now that have caught my interest. I'll start off with the Flames and hockey and work my way out...

Flames news

I was near ready to forget watching the last couple of periods of the game last night after the Flames were down 3-0 after the first. Luckily my brother came home and wanted to watch Tuesday night's episode of House, so I decided to record the last couple of periods of the game and watch them afterwards (so that I could fast forward through it if I felt the need)...

Unfortunately I was watching the FSN North broadcast, which meant that I had to listen to the play-by-play of one Dan Terhaar, who is in his first year in the majors. Normally the comments as to what was good and bad is left to the colour guy (you know, the guy that usually actually played in the league, in this case Mike Greenlay, who did a bang-up job). During the Wild broadcast, Terhaar (coming off a stint as the play-by-play guy for the Golden Gophers as well as other regional college teams) seemed to be stunned every time that the Flames scored a goal, insisting that each one had been tipped or Backstrom had been screened in some horribly illegal way. Dude needs to relax and let Greenlay (a former NHL goalie) do his job. I can't believe there is actually a guy out there that could take lessons from Roger Millions...

It was nice to see Tanguay pot a couple of goals, and Dion's fight was pretty sweet (although unfortunate that he had to go to the box opposite some scrub from the Wild)...

Also annoying was my brother's hinting every time that Calgary was about to score a goal. I may have to do the same thing when his beloved Habs play again some time in the near future (tonight?)...

Hockey news

You know how most channels have a give away during the hockey game where fans can win a phone or a vacuum cleaner or a million dollars if a certain players scores? Well, I was watching the Carolina game last night, and apparently down there you can win a John Deere is somebody scores a hat trick. Granted its a lawn mower and not a tractor, but still... stereotypes exist for a reason...

I was also made aware for the first time last night that the incoming head of the NHLPA, Paul Kelly, is also the guy that prosecuted Alan Eagleson. How was this not considered a big deal? He should have gotten the job for damn near that fact alone...

In a related news story, Eric Lindros will most likely become the first ombudsman (person?) for the NHLPA, meaning that he has decided that his playing career is all but over. He just has to hope that, as the liaison between the NHLPA management and the players, somebody doesn't get mad at him for something and punch him in the head during an argument...

Sports News

I'm sure that everyone is aware that the Red Sox beat the Rockies 13-1 at Fenway last night. I actually kind of saw this one coming, not that I wanted to. My only question is that, if the Yankees are the Evil Empire, representative of the empire from Star Wars, who do the Red Sox represent? They sure as hell aren't the rebels. Maybe we have it mixed up and the Red Sox are actually the Empire, while the Yankees are the Trade Federation? Am I thinking into this a little too much? Uhmmm... Go Rockies!!!

My beloved Chargers are being forced to move their home game against the Houston Texans for this coming Sunday due to the fires in Southern California (Qualcomm Stadium is being used as a shelter for the misplaced). The current leader in the quest for an alternate site is Dallas (Texas Stadium, where the Cowboys play). Which makes me wonder if there isn't a better alternate location that would be more agreeable to the Charger faithful, and not quite as favourable to the Houston fans (not that there are that many hardcore ones, as can be seen by the empty stadium last Sunday after the third quarter). I realize that there are a number of colleges and other teams in the Southwest that would be using some of the larger stadiums (as well as other events, such as a motocross event at University of Phoenix Stadium (where the Chargers are practicing this week). With the LA Colesium, the Rose Bowl and numerous other college stadiums just to the North, there should be something just up the San Diego Freeway. There should at least be something closer than Dallas! I do realize that Dallas is an airline hub, but you don't go tailgating in a rental car (how do you take a barbecue with you on a plane?). This would be like the Flames having to change a home game against the Phoenix Coyotes to Los Angeles because the scoreboard at the Saddledome collapsed and there was a circus at the rink in Winnipeg...

Postgame - Sharks

2007-10-23T21:06:00.000-04:00

Random Observations

I recorded last night's game (the PVR is no longer a source of confidence, as its record of late is the opposite of stellar, and I'm too lazy to look it up and find out what that word is), and after finally finishing watching it tonight I thought I'd share my thoughts from the broadcast...

How can you talk about somebody taking a skate blade to the neck and not reference Clint Malarchuk? (Rob Davidson apparently took a skate to the neck in practice, but obviously it wasn't serious)...

Apparently the Sharks are the heaviest team in the NHL this season (And Roger Millions pointed out that is by weight... as opposed to some other measure...)

The potential $1,000,000 winner for the Safeway Score & Win tonight is Kiki Kaketsis... poor kid never stood a chance in life with a name like that...

Nice of the refs to blow the play dead as Jarome was starting off on a breakaway...

Wow, that was a nice hit by Regehr on Roenick though... JR is a little stunned from that one...

Godard almost had his second goal of the season (and boy would it have been ugly if it counted), yet they reveal the disturbing fact that his ice time is increasing as the year season progresses...

Holding the stick has to be one of the stupidest penalties to get... I'm pretty sure the refs will notice almost every time... bad time to take a penalty Lombardi...

And the Sharks score a minute later, right near the end of the first period... somebody should have had Clowe...

That's not fair! You can't throw your fight opponent into the players box... Semenov, you cheap bastard...

And Calgary gets another penalty before the end of the first... grrrr... Discipline boys!

Bad time for Tanguay to mess up on the powerplay, just too bad that Kipper's rebound bounced right back out to Michalek...

And Keenan lives up to his reputation for pulling the goalie (in the literal sense)...

McElhinney has a pretty cool mask with the skeleton gunslinger, but I think its the first goalie mask that I've seen with a graphic on only one side... It looks uncomplete... Maybe he's waiting to see if he gets to stay up when Krahn is healthy...

It seems that the Flames didn't offer to pay the refs as much as the Sharks did (which is obvious after they miss the call on Nabokov and give him a stern warning instead)...

I think Curtis needs to learn to stay in the net more often...

I'm starting to wonder if all the trade rumours and the diminished ice time are affecting Tanguay in a negative way (mentally)... he seems like he's trying too hard to do something big and not quite getting there...

Roger Millions just called Miilan Michalek a fine looking young man after he scored his second goal of the night... I'm starting to think that Roger's spending too much time at the rink...

What kind of fighter wears a visor? At least his helmet came off easily...

Nice punch to the face by Godard! Its a small victory... And it gives Nystrom some more ice time as gets gets to skate across the playing surface to the penalty box...

Wow, Ron Murray has some bad teeth...

And Nystrom gets some time on the top line... In the two seconds it takes to skate to the bench from the penalty box...

I always find it a little amusing when the Colour guy will make a statement that seems like a question, but the play by play guy has to keep his head in the game so he pretty much just ignores him... Poor Charlie Simmer...

Its always nice to see a shutout get broken in the final minutes of the game... A little "Yeah, you're going to win, but here's a little 'fuck you!' as a parting gift"...

Every time I hear Mark Vlasic's name I have a craving for pickles...

Roger Royer won a Eureka Boss Rug Saver Upright... another poorly named bastard... One letter away from being a joke in the movie 'Airplane'...

And the Sharks are off to a spa in Banff for a couple days... have fun with your group mudbaths boys, but I wouldn't recommend the teal and orange paint for your toenails...

Gameday - San Jose

2007-10-22T16:35:00.001-04:00

Yeah, yeah, I know...

Yes, I do realize that I didn't do a gameday post for the Oiler game on Saturday, but there is a perfectly good explanation... I was drunk...

Actually, if I had done one when I was drunk, it would most likely be a lot more entertaining than the seemingly mindless drivel that I usually put up here...

I was at a birthday party at a bar on Saturday night and by the time the Flames - Oilers tilt started (10:00 PM, my time), I was probably about 5 pints and 3 shots into it...

But I was coherent enough to get the bartender to change over from the baseball game (it was 10-1 at the time, so I wasn't worried about some mindless baseball fan complaining), and I do roughly remember the game, but as I stated, I was at a birthday party. And the drinks didn't exactly slow down after the puck dropped in Calgary...

But the boys won, so I'm not going to dwell on it anyway (not that I really could if I wanted to, as I forgot to record the game), but I'm sure that Torres hit was dirty (as we've all come to expect from him)...

But on to tonight's game! The Sharks are in Cowtown for a 9:00 PM (EST) start at the Saddledome!

I'm not sure what to think of the fish this season, as I haven't heard a whole lot about them, with the possible exception of how Nabokov has been up and down in my fantasy pools. So I'm figuring the team is playing about the same way in front of him...

I could do some actual research, but that's not really my style...

It seems like the boys have begun turning it around already and we haven't even gotten to Halloween yet, woohoo!

Flames win 3-1 and I don't care who scores at this point, as the streak has already ended...

Gameday - Los Angeles

2007-10-18T21:02:00.000-04:00

Why pay more?

So I get to watch the Flames hosting the Kings tonight, which is a benefit of not living in Calgary since I don't have to worry about paying for it on pay per view. Although I do get the same ppv broadcast through Centre Ice...

My first reaction as I just turned to the game is 'Why aren't they doing this in HD?'...

People are paying money for something they normally don't get, so shouldn't they do more than just have their own graphics? I realize that the costs aren't being absorbed by a big national sports channel, but then I also wonder why they would broadcast 14 games of the season only on PPV in the first place? Wouldn't it make more sense to have a broader audience? How many people are actually going to a movie theatre tonight to watch a hockey game? It may just be me, but I don't see the motivating factor. The one thing I will say in favour of the Leafs on this issue is that at least the 13 games that are on Leafs TV can be had for $3 a month...

Maybe they reduce the quality of the broadcast on Centre Ice...

I'm hoping...

Colorado postgame

In regards to the game the other night, I don't really know what to say. You can see my gamut of emotions by looking over at Open Ice Hits in the comments section for that game. I sort of made Dave liveblog it with me...

I wonder who's around and watching the game tonight... : D

Gameday - Colorado

2007-10-16T18:21:00.000-04:00

Uhm, okay then...

The Flames are in Denver tonight to take on the Avalanche and are coming off a couple of road wins in Dallas and Nashville. Luckily this game will actually be televised...

Just out of curiousity I decided to take a look at sports sites to see what the rankings for the Flames (and the Avs due to them being the opponent tonight)...

TSN has the Flames ranked 20th, down from 8th even after winning the last two games. Their reasoning is that they think the team lacks scoring depth, which I find a little odd given the team's scoring last season and the fact that the forward lines only seemed to get stronger coming into this year. They have the Avalanche at 13, down from 12, and one spot ahead of the Predators (who have a worse record than the Flames and have some serious goaltending issues, not to mention the loss on Saturday)...

Sportsline has the Flames at a more reasonable 13, up from 14 last week. Which seems a fair bit more reasonable. Above the falling Predators and pretty much in line with how everyone has played the last week. The Avalanche dropped from 4 to 9, which is reasonable as well, since they are half a point up on the Flames...

ESPN is a little behind the times and still has their rankings from last week up, but they have Calgary at 8, down from 7 (and this is before the road trip started). Colorado is at 5, up from 8 (as they were at 2-1 at the time). I think the ESPN site is a little more in line with their idea of how they feel things will end up, with a weekly tweaking...

FOX Sports has the boys at 20th, up 7 points from 27th (!?!) last week. Wow, apparently Fox sports puts a lot more faith in the preseason than I do. Tonight's opposition dropped from 10th to 11th in the last week, obviously benefitting from a better preseason...

Sports Illustrated also has rankings up, but they are also a little behind. Calgary at 10, down from 5, and Colorado at 7, up from 13. Scott Wraight appears to be the only one to recognize the start of the season as nothing more than an anomally, as opposed to the norm. This is the only ranking that I read where the author fully admitted at the beginning that its nothing more than a crapshoot...

This gives an average ranking of 14.2 in the 30 team league...

What does all this mean? Sweet fuck all, as these things are always subjective. I just though I'd get an idea of where everyone thought the Flames would end up at the beginning of the season...

Gameday - Nashville

2007-10-15T13:00:00.000-04:00

Prove it!

Yeah, I know that the game was 'apparently' on Saturday night, and it is now the following Monday, but since it wasn't aired ANYWHERE, I feel I can do my gameday post today anyway...
Actually, I just didn't want to deviate from the pattern that I set up by doing gameday posts for the 'D' games...

Not that I was home on Saturday night (I was at a country bar doing line-dancing with some friends for the first time ever, which my brother is ridiculously bad at), but I still think that if I'm paying for Centre Ice, I should still have had the option of seeing that game. How hard would it be to grab one of the two dozen Jim-Bobs in attendance and tell them 'Here, just look through this little hole thingy and keep the other end pointed at the ice.' I wouldn't even need commentary or anything, just the ability to see what's happening. I could even provide my own play-by-play, if I really felt the need. 'Huselius stickhandles around the Predators defence', 'Lombardi speeds down the ice', 'Eriksson looks like his skates are stuck to the ice, as the Nashville forward dekes him out again'...

I mean seriously, in this day in age when you can watch you tube videos of some random person crying about the bad press that Britney Spears gets or showing how quickly some guy can funnel a beer, how can you not get some Dwight Yoakam wannabe with a little handheld video camera to follow a game that already has an audience interested in watching it?

Although I do find it a little ironic that I was at a line-dancing bar (the only one in the greater Toronto area, so far as I know) on a night when the Flames were playing in Nashville (in a bar that was until recently called 'Nashville North')...

Oh yeah, and the Flames won the game 7-4, but you probably already know that...

That is two road wins in a row in arenas that the Flames had previously had some trouble in...

Next up is the Avalanche in Denver tomorrow night (I don't include it as one of the D's, since the team uses Colorado in its name)...

And before somebody gets all hot under the collar, I feel the need to point out that I grew up on a farm listening to country music, and I still do to this day. So I'm sorry if I offended anyone...

But if you are getting all offended by something in a blog, you probably have bigger problems...

Looking at travelling to Calgary in early March, possibly during my brother's reading week (he's a teacher), to catch the Blues in town...

Gameday - Dallas

2007-10-12T13:39:00.000-04:00

Only two things come from Texas...

Alright, so the Flames head into their 4th game of the season in Dallas tonight and still haven't won a game yet. This does not phase me, as they seem to be getting some bad bounces and its not like they've been blown away in these losses. Plus, its October, and as much as I like beating a dead horse, they always suck in October. And they have a new coach, so growing pains are to be expected...

YAY OPTIMISM!!!

Keetley has been called up to replace McElhinney, who should probably think about skipping team warmups for a while. I mean, what are the chances of having two injuries before the puck drops within two weeks. He might be better off going into games cold...

Of course, we are dealing with back to back games tonight and tomorrow, so there is a decent chance that Keetley could actually see some game action (think Curtis is jealous?). Especially if its a blowout, but lets not talk about that...

Tonight Modano tries to prove that he's not over the hill yet and Aucoin tries to prove he's worth the money... again...

Good luck with that...

Gameday - Detroit

2007-10-10T13:23:00.000-04:00

Steal Thunder vs Styles

The Flames visit Detroit tonight to take on the Red Wings and their 'Fire on Ice' theme...

Seriously, how dumb is that... Maybe 'Wings take flight' or 'Flying Monkeys' would be more appropriate... After the 'Red Wave' from last year I think that the Wings slogan for next year will probably be something like 'Flaming Pucks' or 'We're Burning Up'... Maybe they'll redo the 'Young Guns' theme... or worse...

Obviously this is a rematch of the 2007 first round playoff series where the Red Wings dominated on home ice. If you found your way here, then you obviously must have passed by that information at least a couple of times already, so I'm not going to get into it...

The matchup that will provide the most interest and debate tonight (in my household, anyway), is which game gets the most airtime in the Smith household. Thanks to my subscribing to Centre Ice before the season (a bipartisan act to see more of my Flames and my Chargers, while letting my brother catch his beloved Habs games), there will be a bit of a conflict tonight on the television. Calgary at Detroit and Montreal at Pittsburgh both tip off at 7:30 and young netminder Carey Price will be between the pipes for Les Canadiens against Crosby and the rest of the young guns from Pittsburgh (they're like fire on ice)...

I would do a poll as to which everyone thinks we should have to watch, but he doesn't have a blog, so I don't think that would really be fair... in an entirely unrelated note, keep your eyes peeled for a new poll going up in my right hand column shortly... just kidding... kinda... ; )

Although I wouldn't mind catching some Gary Roberts intensity...

Maybe my brother and I will have to have a Guitar Hero showdown to determine which puck drop we watch...

And I have no idea as to why his friends call him Styles...

Finally!

2007-10-04T11:06:00.000-04:00

Start me up...

After a long wait the Flames season finally starts tonight at home against the Flyers. It doesn't seem like it could have come soon enough. Between my extremely intermittent posting over the summer and general lack of interest in the preseason (mostly due to my inability to actually see what's going on there), things are about to get back to normal. Which is a relative term, as I haven't even been around for a full season yet...

The big thing for me heading into the season is the addition of Center Ice to my cable package, (meaning I don't have to fret about Sportsnet blacking out Flames games here in Ontario) so I can actually watch most of the Flames games on my big screen and not just follow the boxscores on CBS Sportsline...
Of course, I'm meeting up with some buddies tonight to finalize my keeper league team for the season, so there is an outside chance that I will miss part of the game. At least there would be, if I didn't have my trusty PVR! No commercials for me!

Roster

I've never been one to list my ideal lineups, and things aren't about to change now. I'll leave that kind of stuff to more capable hands, and instead just concentrate on who made the roster. A few weeks ago I was asked by the pensblog to do up a season preview of the Flames, which I happily agreed to. And if any of you are planning on sifting through it, just be aware that the boys over at pensblog aren't exactly known for being completely serious at all times (though it is a fun read every morning)...

Goal

#34 Miikka Kiprusoff and #31 Curtis McElhinney

Kipper will obviously get the vast majority of the starts here, and McElhinney only got the backup job because Brent Krahn is currently on the IR. Which is actually fortunate for Krahn, as I personally think that McElhinney would have beaten him for the job out of camp anyway. There are also rumours that the Flames may resign Noodles, as they may not have been significantly impressed with any of the young netminders out of camp (which I think would be a mistake due to the backlog of young talent the Flames already have). Mind you it doesn't really matter who the backup is, because he won't be playing all that much anyway...

Defence

#33 Adrian Aucoin, #8 Anders Eriksson, #21 David Hale, #3 Dion Phaneuf, #28 Robyn Regehr, #6 Cory Sarich, and #44 Rhett Warrener

Darryl Sutter appears to be taking a more defensive approach to his blueline this season (which kind of makes sense, doesn't it?), grabbing a couple of guys that are a little stronger in their own zone than the players they are replacing. It would have been awesome to have seen Giordano get a chance at a spot, but apparently Sutter thought that a non-productive veteran presence was more important. Not pleased with this decision (like pretty much all Flames fans), though I do expect the Flames to bring Gio back next year (although the idea of giving Eriksson a two year deal is looking a bit like an abatross right now... trade bait?). The defence should be pretty solid, and hopefully the new pairings (whatever they end up being) can develop some chemistry as October progresses...

Forwards

#24 Craig Conroy, #17 Eric Godard, #20 Kristian Huselius, #12 Jarome Iginla, #22 Daymond Langkow, #18 Matthew Lombardi, #25 David Moss, #26 Marcus Nilson, #11 Owen Nolan, #63 Warren Peters, #19 Wayne Primeau, #16 Mark Smith, #40 Alex Tanguay, #7 Stephane Yelle

As I said before, I'm not about to speculate on the lineups for the game tonight, but I'm pretty sure that Godard will be one of the two forwards in the press box tonight. He's become a little redundant with the addition of Warren Peters to the lineup (also a capable fighter, but also has some hockey ability) so I figure it is only a matter of time until some other team needs an enforcer and he can be traded for future considerations or an AHLer. Although he will most likely be on the gameday roster for all Wild games, since he seems to own the 'Boogeyman'...

Owen Nolan appears to be another reclamation project by Sutter (the Friesen project was essentially a failure last year, as was Amonte the year before), but Nolan has actually put up some very solid numbers in his past for a sustained period of time. If Playfair was still the head coach, Nolan would most likely be on the ice at the end of every period if he played well that game or not...

The top 6 forwards (in no particular order), should be Iggy, Juice, Langkow, Lombardi, Tanguay, and Moss. With Nolan possibly replacing Moss on right wing, and Conroy may occasionally get some top 6 time in lieu of Lombardi. Which I'm okay with, just as long as its when they are playing well and the young guys are still getting plenty of ice time...

And yes, for some reason I decided to link to the player profiles on the Flames' site as opposed to the NHL site. Don't ask me why, I just felt like it...

Front Office

Mike Keenan takes over behind the bench for the Flames this year, which should be interesting to say the least. I'm not about to get into Iron Mike's history, as you most likely know it, and if you don't then click here. At least we know that he dresses fairly conservatively and will have the balls to actually make in game changes. Of course, I just hope that those in game changes don't include changing the goalie 4 times...

Darryl Sutter is obviously still the GM, but it will be interesting to see how he gets along with Keenan. The two have been said to be very similar, so hopefully we have a repeat of the 2003-04 season (but with a better start)...

Overall I'm pretty optomistic about this season. Let's just hope that we don't have to deal with yet another crappy October to start the season...

Seeing as I haven't had anyone comment on one of my posts since the end of July, I'm starting to think that I could write almost anything here and nobody would notice it (or at the very least, nobody would comment on it)...

Norv Turner is killing my Chargers...

Debating heading out to Calgary for a game next year, possibly on a weekend in March...

I've been known to cheer for the Leafs on occasion...

New Jerseys Revisited

2007-09-24T12:05:00.000-04:00

On Second thought...

I don't think that any NHL team fan has the right to complain about their team jersey as long as this eyesore is allowed to take the field...

No wonder the Eagles beat the Lions so badly yesterday, Detroit was trying not to look directly at the Philly shirts...

Housekeeping

2007-09-19T12:18:00.000-04:00

Where did I put that dustpan?

The (Un)Balanced Schedule and Expansion

Apparently at the recent Board of Governors meeting, they decided that the current schedule needs to be changed, but they are putting that decision/ thought process on hold until November. Bob McKenzie over at TSN has a good blog up about it here...

Also in the blog, McKenzie touched on the possiblity of expansion being brought up with potential locations being Las Vegas and Louisville. Which actually brings me to this most recent post from Metrognome where it appears that the Nashville Predators are going to get to Kentucky by hook or by crook...

Flames get new threads (and so does everyone else)

I figured I might as well comment on the new Flames unis before the season starts and there are other more pressing things to discuss. I don't mind the jerseys at all. I like how they used a red lace in the away jersey, maybe its what the boys needed to get over the hump on the road, a little more red. The shoulder flashes seem a little excessive, but I hear its only a one year thing for now, so I can live with it. I was previously unaware that Calgary is in both Canada and Alberta...

For a complete run down on all of the new jerseys for this season, visit NHL Logos...

Preseason update

2007-09-18T15:41:00.000-04:00

Let me know when the games start counting...

Yes, I do realize that the preseason games are important for looking at how the young guns are coming along, as well as topping up the roster, but I refuse to let myself get bothered by a loss to Florida in a game of mixed rosters. Yes, they beat us 3-0 the other night, but in the grand scheme of the season, isn't it more important that we got a good look at a couple of young guys like Dustin Boyd and Matt Keetley (who apparently played awesome), than what it shows on the scoreboard? Boyd is a player that could make the Flames roster and Keetley is looking like he'll be taking a legitimate stab at a starting goalie position in the Quad Cities (and with the injury to Krahn, may even see some time on the Calgary bench at some point this season)...

I have no problem losing all of our preseason games if it means that the coaching staff gets a good look at all of our young players and get a chance to play around with line combinations to see what might work...

Of course, since I won't be able to see any of these games (or practices), its a little easier for me to just shrug the preseason off. For a more in depth view of the preseason, I'd suggest Metrognome, Walk Invisible, or Leanne's breakdowns...

Wow, that was a little more serious than I'm used to...

August Rundown

2007-08-28T14:29:00.000-04:00

Wow, that was exciting...

Okay, the summer is almost over and I haven't posted yet this month, so I thought I'd best chime in on a couple things while I still remember. This time I'm going to post the more pressing issues first...

Its a hockey pool!!!

For those in the Flames blogosphere that are interested and haven't noticed yet, Dave over at Open Ice Hits has posted a link for a fantasy pool using a points based system. I'm more of a head to head and rotisiree veteran myself, but I don't see why my hockey pool dominance can't extend to another format...

Giordano heading to Moscow

I didn't notice this until this morning, well after many a blogger had already put their two cents in, so I'm a little late in this, but here goes...

I'm more than a little disappointed to see Gio go after he showed a fair bit of promise last season, but I've talked myself into a similar camp to conroytoiginla when it comes to the whole thing. Yes, it sucks that he won't be playing for the Flames this year, but he's not going anywhere else right now either. I don't think another season (or partial season) in the AHL was going to do a whole lot for him, and with the number of blueliners that the Flames have signed on for this year already, I don't know how much playing time he would have gotten with the big club anyway. At least in Europe he will get to see plenty of ice and he can work on his finesse skills while he's over there. From what I understand the Flames still have his rights, so its like we are getting him to develop while not having to pay him this season (kind of). If we have somebody go down with a long term injury later in the season, it would be impossible to get him to come back over, especially with the lack of a transfer agreement. But a more plausible end result is that we have a chance to bring him back next season when we have more space for him...

Note to self: check on d-man contract status after this season...

Ed Belfour to play overseas as well

Eddie the Eagle has signed on to play hockey in Sweden next season. I think he still has something to offer the hockey world, and he obviously hasn't lost his love for the game, so I can't see this as anything but a good thing. Let's just hope that he doesn't get his hands on a golf cart after a drinking binge...

Numbers to change

If you head on over to Flames Daily, conroytoiginla has an interesting post up regarding the numbers that some of the Flames will be sporting for the upcoming season, the most interesting of them being Yelle switching to numbers to allow Owen Nolan to wear the number 11 for the second time in his career. I wonder what NHL players give each other for switching numbers, does it work similar to the NFL?

My best post of the month!

2007-07-23T11:39:00.000-04:00

And also my worst...

Yeah, there really isn't too much going on with the Flames since the draft and the opening of free agency. But I will try to shed my own personal light on what the Flames have done lately, some things of interest, and maybe a couple of shots at the boys to the North while I'm at it...

Draft Recap

I actually taped the NHL draft this year (as the first round was on a Friday night, which I think is a BAD idea), but they didn't get to the Flames first pick near the end of the first round, which means that it was pretty much all for naught, with the possible exception of seeing two of the bigger names fall to a point where they got picked up by the Rangers and Penguins (no fix going on there, eh fellas)...

Mikael Backlund, 24th overall

I don't honestly know much about him, but what I've heard from various sources has been encouraging. As always with European players there is a chance that they will choose to stay over there through their developing stages and may have trouble adjusting by the time the cross the Atlantic. Hopefully Backlund will make the move over here early (if not this year, then next year) and he can spend a year or two on the farm. It sounds like he has many of the qualities that Sutter looks for, and I'm sure he would like to play on a Flames team that should be a contender for at least the next 5 years (if the Iginla and Regehr contracts are any indication)...

John Negrin, 70th overall

Another Western Canadian defenceman picked up by Sutter, which is a trend of the last couple of years. Defencemen seem to be safer picks in the later rounds, and Negrin seems like he could develop into a 2nd line pairing offensive defenceman that could get some powerplay time. Although there are questions as to his play in his own zone...

Keith Aulie, 116th overall

At 6'6", Aulie is your typical WHL defenceman and is probably a pretty well-rounded guy (WHL scholastic player of the year and also saved his father's life after he fell through the ice at the family homestead in Rouleau, Saskatchewan two years ago). Although with a weight listed at only 208 lbs, it sounds like he has a considerable amount of bulking up to do before making the move to the big leagues...

Mickey Renaud, 143rd overall

Renaud has good size for a centre (6'2", 217lbs) and was the Windsor Spitfires' player of the year, but with only 54 points in 68 games in an offensive league, its hard to imagine him getting anywhere near the first line at this point. He will most likely be spending at least the next two years in the Quad Cities, unless he chooses to go back to the OHL...

C.J. Severyn, 186th overall

As a part of the U.S. national under 18 program, there isn't a whole lot I have heard of Severyn, beyond what has been posted on a couple of sites. But with only 6 goals and 16 points in 48 games last year, along with his attending The Ohio State University next year, I don't expect him to be in the Flames plans for the next 3 years at least...

Resignings

Obviously some of the biggest news over the last few weeks was the resigning of both Jarome Iginla and Robyn Regehr to 5 year deals. I don't know how this can't be seen as a good thing, as we now have 2 of our marquee players under long term contracts. The only question now is how much space will be left under the cap for Phaneuf and Kiprusoff, and how much they will be asking for...

Free Agency

The Flames have been moderately busy this off-season, with three free agency pickups which should fill out the lineup a little bit, but I'm not sure how they will address the need for scoring up front...

Cory Sarich ($18 million over 5 years)

Sarich is one of those unheralded defencemen that do their job without attracting a lot of attention to themselves. And I'm sure that being in Tampa for the majority of his career hasn't helped his exposure much either. I think he will fit in well with the team that Sutter has put together (especially given the fact that he is a good ole prarie boy) and should do well on a pairing with a more offensive minded defenceman. Of course he will be 34 by the time that the contract expires and they could probably have gotten him for a little less, but I don't have any real problems with this signing...

Owen Nolan ($1.75 million for 1 year, with a bonus structure)

This is one of those signings that always brings back the nostalgia when you hear a name of what used to be one of the better players in the league. Then you see that its only going to cost you less than $2 million a year and its only a one year contract, so there isn't a whole lot of risk. Then reality kicks in a little and you remember that most of these signings don't work out as well as everyone hoped. Let's just hope that the performance bonuses will keep Nolan motivated, as will the chance to be playing for a contender and being out of the desert...

Anders Eriksson ($3 million over 2 years)

I honestly don't know that much about Eriksson, beyond that he played for the Blue Jackets last season and he was previously a prospect in the Flames system (but never made the big show). He actually put up a nice +/- figure with a sub-.500 Columbus team (+12), so I'm thinking he is obviously an upgrade over the likes of Zyuzin. It just makes me wonder where we are going to play all of these defencemen and who is going to be the odd man out...

Goalie problems (the good kind)

With Noodles going off to Russia to play hockey next year, you would think that would simplify things in the Flames crease. But with both Leland Irving and Matt Keetley potentially coming out of junior this year, along with the resignings of both Brent Krahn and Curtis McElhinney, you have to wonder who is getting promoted to the big club, and who is the odd man out in the Quad Cities (read 'who is going to Las Vegas and not in the good way'). I think Krahn will get the chance in Calgary, while it will be McElhinney and Keetley in the Quad Cities, with Irving being kept down in Everett and James Spratt continuing his education at Bowling Green. Kevin Lalande is most likely the odd man out in the whole situation, as he will turn 21 next February, meaning he will no longer be eligible for the OHL's Belleville Bulls...

Defensive Deficiencies

Okay, here's a question for everyone...

If you have a couple of offensive-minded defensemen signed, you've just traded away your most reliable d-man, and you have a questionable number one goaltender, what type of player should you go after next? I know what you're thinking, another stay at home blueliner, right?

Wrong! The Oilers decided to complement Dick Tarnstrom and Joni Pitkanen with Sheldon Souray. Something tells me that Dwayne Roloson will be seeing a whole lot of rubber this season, and will have to be sure to put sunscreen on his neck before each game...

Hall of fame bound

Al MacInnis will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this year, which brings up the question of whether he will be remembered more as being a Flame or a Blue. I realize that its not really a big question one way or the other in the NHL, as opposed to Cooperstown where they go in wearing one team's cap, but I think its still one worth asking. As I'm sure that most will always think of Gretzky as an Oiler first, MacInnis had his most success as a Flame, especially being the team's only Conn Smythe winner...

And now for something completely useless...

Over on the Battle of Alberta website, Matt seems to have found a site that rates your blog according to the suitability of the content to all ages. I've posted my little disclaimer on my sidebar, although I'm not sure how long I'll be leaving it up there. I do find it interesting that the reasoning behind giving it the PG rating that they did was that the word 'steal' appeared 8 times and the word 'ass' was in it once. I mean seriously, its part of my screen name. But I will give them credit for the ass...

And one more question for the Oiler less-than-faithful...

Since the Oilers could only get Pikanen to sign a one year deal, are they a little concerned that he may want out after one season and didn't want to be stuck trying to trade away his contract for less than fair market value?

Wow, you go on vacation and look at what happens...

2007-06-22T09:33:00.000-04:00

Did I miss anything?

So after the Stanley Cup finals ended, I decided to take a little vacation to NYC, thinking that I would be back for the draft, so I probably wouldn't miss too much in the hockey world (or at least in regards to the Flames anyway)...

Apparently I was mistaken, so here are my thoughts on what has transpired over the last couple of weeks (and I'll start with the most current)...

Flames acquire Adrian Aucoin from the Chicago Blackhawks for Andrei Zyuzin

Now a lot of people are going to point to Aucoin's miniscule point production (16 points) and abysmal plus/minus rating (-22) while he was in the windy city making $4 million (not to mention the injury woes). But I think some of that has to do with the team around him, and to the guy between the pipes (to some extent, as Khabibulin wasn't playing at 100% all season). I think that Aucoin is one of those players that needs a change of scenery (even though he wasn't in Chicago that long) and he has played under Mike Keenan (which I will address further down) before...

Besides, if all we had to give up to get him was Andrea Susan, then that's just the sprinkles on top of the ice cream sundae. We all knew that Stuart wasn't going to stick around and the chances of resigning Hammer after the season he just had were looking slimmer. Getting a top pairing defenceman was a necessity, and I think Aucoin should fill the roll very well...

And I think that coming in knowing that he'll be playing for a contender will do wonders for his morale, considering where he's been playing for most of his career...

Flames resign David Moss

I honestly can't beleive that the Flames signed him on again for such a cheap one year deal ($575,000). I would have expected upwards of at least $800,000 for a guy that played his heart out last season. Of course, I'm sure that getting the chance to play for a solid team in a fairly substantial role (I'm assuming that Calgary won't be resigning a lot of the deadweight and Moss will get second line minutes at least half the time) would make him more inclined to take a bit of a hometown discount (let's just hope that he doesn't get screwed over by it like Ference did)...

Flames sign prospects Krahn, Germyn, and Peters

Resigning the top two playoff scorers from the Knights was a bit of a no-brainer, but I'm a little curious at the signing of Krahn. With the way that McElhinney played for the Knights last season and with Lelande Irving coming in from the WHL, I had thought that Krahn would be let go. Of course, I have a feeling that McElhinney will probably be left to tutor Irving in the Quad Cities next year and Krahn will now be brought in to take the place of Jamie Mclennan...

Flames hire Mike Keenan as new coach

This one actually caught me by surprise last week, although I think we all knew that Playfair wasn't going to be the man behind the bench next season (although he will be staying on in an associate role, which is where he probably should have stayed in the first place). And of course I found out when I was out with a bunch of buddies that don't follow hockey too closely (of course, they are all from Toronto, so in a way I can't really blame them). Which is a frustrating thing when something like this happens and you just want to get some thoughts and opinions on it...

I like the move. Sure Iron Mike has a history of being a little tough on players, but he also has a history with Darryl Sutter (and some of the players, which could be a bad thing for Huselius). I think that with the team that Sutter has put together, the toughness issue shouldn't be a problem. I know Keenan hasn't done much of anything since he guided the Rangers to the Cup, but he hasn't really had a whole lot to work with since then either. I also think that he'll have enough respect for the management team above him, that he won't be butting heads with anyone and he'll probably be pretty happy with the team that has fallen to him...

But if Keenan starts doing the goalie juggling that he used to, I may have to alter my position...

Flames farm team moves from Omaha to the Quad Cities

Now to be honest on this one, it doesn't really affect me that much as to where the farm team plays (unless they want to move into the Southern Ontario area, which I would be all over). Although it is a little sad to see them leave Nebraska, which seemed to welcome the team and came up with a pretty cool logo. But I'm sure that the Quad Cities (which I couldn't name off if my life depended on it), were missing hockey since the Mallards left a couple years ago...

Ducks win the Stanley Cup

Well, I guess I should at least acknowledge it...

Playoff Predictions - Stanley Cup Finals

2007-05-28T18:08:00.000-04:00

And then there were two...

The Stanley Cup finals begin tonight in Anaheim between the Ducks and the Ottawa Senators. I'm not going to go over how the teams got here, as I'm sure that if you found my blog, you already know...

I am a little bit split on this series (but only a little), as I have factors pushing from both sides...

I'd like to see the cup come North of the 40th parallel again (or even the 35th), so I like Ottawa for that reason, and I'd also like to see a Canadian team win it again (it has been 14 years)...

Of course, I'd also like to see a Western Conference team win it, as it would help to reinforce my personal idea that the Eastern Conference is not as strong (although it could still be argued that its stronger from top to bottom)...

To see Pronger lift the cup would also reinforce my own personal schadenfreude when it comes to the Oilers fans suffering, but I would have rather had him bow out a little sooner so the Oilers didn't get another first round draft pick...

I grew up in a town that is about equal distance from both Toronto and Ottawa, and my dad likes the Senators (he is also a lifelong Blackhawks fan, but he doesn't get to watch them on television very much), so I'd like to see the Senators to win for that reason...

And finally, living in the heart of Leafland, I would have no problem seeing all the Leafers get disheartened to see Daniel Alfredsson lifting the Stanley Cup over his head...

Senators in 6

Playoff Predictions - Round 3

2007-05-10T18:21:00.000-04:00

You just can't see me...

I know I haven't posted in a couple weeks, but I have still been around...

I will try to post some thoughts and such this weekend or something, but for now, here is my quick analysis on the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs that start tonight...

Only two series this time, so it should be a lot easier...

(1) Detroit Red Wings Vs. (2) Anaheim Ducks

In all seriousness, when you type it out, Mighty Ducks actually rolls off the tongue easier... and yes I do know what I just said (typed). I think Anaheim is a much more well rounded team than Calgary or San Jose were, so I think they will take this one. And they have their own little pain in the ass player in Sammy Pahlsson, so I'm very curious to see how the Wings respond to that type of player... Anaheim in 7

(1) Buffalo Sabres Vs. (4) Ottawa Senators

Ottawa has looked really good all playoffs against tough competition, while Buffalo had some tough games against the other two Empire State teams. I've never thought that Miller was all that solid of a goaltender, although that may be a bit of my Canadian bias. I say that the Senators keep rolling and carry Canada's Stanley Cup hope to the finals... Ottawa in 6

Playoff Predictions - Round 2

2007-04-25T17:05:00.000-04:00

Quick and Dirty

Not a whole lot of time right now, as I'm off to my floor hockey game, but I figured I'd better get this out beforethe second round actually starts (I'll touch it up when I get home, but the predictions will stay the same)...

I went 5 for 8 in the first round, but I did get the East entirely right...

Detroit vs San Jose

I think the Wings have a solid team, but the Flames exposed their weakness in their defensive zone (the few chances they had in there), and also with special teams. The Sharks are a pretty solid team all around, although they do have a pretty young blueline. Sharks in 7...

Anaheim vs Vancouver

Despite the heroics of Luongo, the Canucks just don't have the firepower to keep pace with the Ducks. Especially when the twins are held in check. Ducks in 5...

Buffalo vs New York Rangers

The Sabres have a solid team, although they let a weaker Islanders team hang around last series, almost blowing big leads a couple times. The Rangers are built well and had no trouble dispatching the Thrashers in the opening round. I think momentum carries this one. Rangers in 6...

New Jersey vs Ottawa

The Senatros are finally looking like the team that everyone expected them to be four years ago and looked dominant against a young Penguins team. Brodeur hasn't looked his usually stoic self the last part of the year, as opposed to Emery, who has been improving all season. Senators in 6...

It's Over

2007-04-25T10:14:00.000-04:00

After the Storm

I've been MIA from the blogosphere lately, but it hasn't been entirely on purpose. I wasn't home very much this weekend, and when I was, it was only to sleep or get ready to head out again...

As such, I have yet to put in my response to the play of the Flames in the last couple games or my PVR's now imperfect record of 10-1 (yes, I did watch the game live on Sunday night, sorry)...

I have the game from Saturday afternoon on my PVR still (despite being told I should just delete it), and will probably get around to watching it and the other two recorded games over the course of this weekend. I can't say that I'm really looking forward to seeing the Flames lose again, and I have already seen the highlights (and lowlights) from the game, but I will watch the game regardless. I think it will help me try to wrap my head around what happened to this team on the road and may give me a bit more closure on the season...

I've already had a couple days to dwell on the Flames being out of the playoffs, and now that I'm wide awake and sober I realize that it wouldn't have been right for this 'team' to have made it to the second round on the back of Miikka alone...

There are a couple of things that Sutter has to do in the off season to fix the team for next year, the biggest being his coaching staff. The offence was remarkably potent over the course of the season, but the defence seemed quite porous, especially on the road. And I'm not talking about the blueline alone, as there seemed to occasionally be a lack of effort on behalf of the forwards to backcheck and cover the points in the Flames zone. Which was most evident in the playoff round against the Red Wings, when the boys were giving up an ungodly number of shots due to an inability to clear the puck...

I'm not sure if there is anything else to say on this point, beyond the need for the team to do some housecleaning to get rid of what can afford to and make space for what they need. There are some players that need not be brought back for next season (Amonte, McCarty) and it would be nice to see a couple of the boys from Omaha get a good chance next year (I'm looking at McElhinney and Boyd here)...

I'm not sure who I'll cheer for in the second round yet, but it'll probably be Ottawa and the Rangers in the East, and I'll be cheering for Detroit and against the Canucks in the West...

I'd just like to thank the Red Wings bloggers that took the time to sort through some of my meaningless drivel, and I will most certainly add a couple of you to my blogroll on the side of my page. Good luck in the next round!

The picture at the top of this post is actually one I took while on vacation in Scotland a couple years ago. I've been told that I have a pretty good eye, which is good because I can't write, draw, or play music with any semblance of talent whatsoever. This pic is probably my favourite...

My not so evil twin

2007-04-20T13:11:00.000-04:00

10-0!!!

Okay, so I got home last night in time to have caught the last half of the game, but decided to just let the PVR handle it and watched a couple other shows instead (along with bits of the other games until my brother pointed out that they might flash the Flames - Red Wings score at some point). Couldn't chance that...

When I was watching the Ottawa- Pittsburgh game with a buddy of mine after our own game, a thing came up on the screen mentioning that the national broadcast would be the Vancouver game (since it was a 3-1 series), I had to make a quick call home. I hadn't actually set the PVR myself, but I had planned on calling my brother before the puck was supposed to drop and get him to do it. Apparently I didn't have to. Not only had he already set it, but he saw the announcement for the regional broadcast as well, and had set it for one of the few stations we get that was showing it (god bless time-shifting)...

Of course, when I did get home he spent the next hour and a half asking me if I wanted to know what the score was...

But that's alright, as he's a good enough brother to not actually spoil it for me. I'm kind of stunned that he would record it for me in the first place, given that he is frequently complaining about the Flames games I already have saved on it. But he's cool like that, I guess...

Since I couldn't use my Ritchie PVR picture (as he wasn't playing lst night), I had to create a new one with Langkow...

Of course, most of my PVR's record can be attributable to home games, so the real test will be Saturday afternoon in Detroit. I have a potential finals game in my one tournament at 3:00 and a round robin game in my other tournament at 4:30, so I will be missing the Flames game regardless. Let's just hope the record can carry through...

Go Flames!!!

Taking one for the team

2007-04-18T08:55:00.000-04:00

What did I miss?

So last night I decided to take one for the team and skip the Flames game. I set my PVR and was supposed to play an exhibition game at 9:30, but I have been so exhausted lately I just decided to stay in... and go to bed at 10:30...

I was tossing and turning for the better part of the night wondering if I did the right thing by not staying up for the game. I worried for my PVR's record (for no reason apparently) getting tarnished, which I'm sure happens to all records when they have grown a life of their own and defied the odds. Like my brother finally winning on his 41st cup of coffee in this year's Tim Hortons 'Roll up the rim to play again' contest, I know it will eventually come to an end...

But not last night! 9-0! Booya!

I'm not sure when I'll actually get a chance to watch the game (as I'm in two ice hockey tournaments this weekend starting tomorrow night, and I have a playoff floor hockey game tonight), but I've already gotten a feel for what I missed from various sources around the Flames blogosphere...

Gio played and scored a goal, Phaneuf was cheapshotted by Dan Cleary (really starting to not like that guy), Amonte played the final minutes of the game AGAIN, Iggy scored the game winner, and the Saddledome was apparently rocking...

It appears as though our collective superstitiousness (is that a word) may have payed off last night...

Back in the Saddle(dome)

2007-04-17T13:13:00.000-04:00

Home Sweet Home...

After a couple of rough games in Detroit featuring the Evil Road Flames, the boys are finally back in Calgary in an effort to even up the series before heading back to 'the Joe'...

Not only are the boys back in town (well, not my town, but still...), but I have a hockey game of my own at 9:30 (EST) tonight, so I will have to tape the Flames game. I trust that the perfect 8-0 record will only be strengthened with the home Flames on the ice tonight. I'll probably only miss the first half of the game in all likelihood, but I hope that me watching the game on delay (and slowly catching up) will not affect anything...

Most of the key things for the Flames tonight has already been covered throughout the Flames blogosphere, so I won't go into too much detail here...

Although, since Amonte didn't get on the ice in game 2 until close to the 13 minute mark of the first period, I think I've found a way to keep him off the ice in the final minutes of every period. Unfortunately, it involves taking a penalty (as he doesn't play on the penalty kill), so I think he may actually be the lesser of the two evils...

And Regehr is apparently out again (with a different injury), which is truly unfortunate as he was looking fairly effective on Sunday while limiting shots. Maybe if he could teach this skill to the rest of the Flames blueliners before the game tonight, Kipper might actually see a little less rubber. The guy hopefully has to play more than four more games this post-season, so it would probably be a good idea if he wasn't shell-shocked after this series...

I've decided not to make predictions during the playoffs, as I'm always wrong anyway (although I am thinking of a score for tonight's game between 1-0 and 5-4)...

For the Flames of course...

Here's hoping...

2007-04-15T13:18:00.000-04:00

The Forgotten Intangible...

When I posted my intangibles the other day, I forgot perhaps the most relevant one...

The Evil Road Flames...

I don't know how I forgot about them, but they were more than a little prevalent in Thursday's game. Let's just hope they have gone back into whatever hole they crawled out of...

Postgame - Detroit game 1

2007-04-12T23:14:00.000-04:00

Where's the rest of the team?

While I was watching the game tonight and scaring my brother's girlfriend with my loud outbursts of profanity, I kept asking myself 'How bad would the score have been if Kipper wasn't in net?'...

Sure Detroit scored four goals, but its not like Miikka had a chance on any of them. The evil road Flames were out on full display tonight, missing checks and passes and pinching in too much. They couldn't seem to get the puck out of their own zone, and when they did they would miss the next pass or would just dump the puck in a little too far. They couldn't seem to clear out the front of the net, allowing way too many screened shots on Kipper, who repeatedly came up with huge saves on what appeared to be open nets...

And it was awful nice of Cleary to drop his shoulder as he went by Kipper at the end of the game. Sure Kipper embellished a little, but its not like Cleary tried to avoid him, just the opposite. And despite what Grabia was saying in the BofA comments section, he was not three feet out of his crease. Just brutal (which could actually be the word of the game from a Flames perspective)...

If the boys can just hold Detroit to a reasonable amount of shots, they should be able to turn this series around. I'm sure Sutter was down in the dressing room after the game, giving the team a bit of a speech and hopefully pulling Jimmy aside with a few little suit recommendations (I'm not saying Darryl dresses well, but good god Jimmy)...

I just don't know what else to say at this point... CRAP!!!

Playoffs Round 1 - Detroit Red Wings

2007-04-12T11:42:00.000-04:00

Into the great wide open...

I think we all know the story of Icarus and his wings...

I've posted the schedule below and a bunch of Red Wings blog links to the right...

Thu, April 12 7:00 p.m. at Detroit (VERSUS, CBC)
Sun, April 15 1:00 p.m. at Detroit (NBC, CBC)
Tue, April 17 10:00 p.m. at Calgary (CBC, VERSUS)
Thu, April 19 10:00 p.m. at Calgary (CBC, VERSUS)
Sat, April 21 3:00 p.m. at Detroit (NBC, CBC)
Sun, April 22 9:00 p.m. at Calgary (CBC, VERSUS)
*Tue, April 24 TBD at Detroit (CBC, VERSUS)

Much like everyone else, I'm going to break down the series by position and intangibles from my own perspective. Unfortunately I didn't get to see as many Detroit games as I would have liked to this season (due to never being home), but I'll do what I can...

Goaltenders

I basically analyze this as a battle between a goalie who barely faces any shots, to one whose defencemen have been having trouble stopping shooters this season. Hasek is not the goalie he was 5 years ago when he won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings, not even close. And he's even further removed from his trip to the finals with Buffalo. He's obviously older and a little slower, although he's still better than most starters in the league. I just don't know about his durability. Everyone knows about his injury history as of late, but I'm thinking more in terms of his endurance. Playoff series games are closer together than the regular season and I'm not convinced that Hasek's 42 year old body is capable of lasting for a long series, especially one that may include an overtime game or two. His save percentage this past season was the lowest it has ever been for a season in which he started at least 30 games. I honestly don't know if he'll even last through this series, especially when the two teams have to play games across two time zones on back-to-back days...

Miikka Kiprusoff may be the defending Vezina trophy winner, but it was a little hard to tell this season. His defence, which looks like it should be on an all-star roster on paper, seemed to have a propensity to let guys get around them on the outside this past season and get shots off from the outside. The previous two seasons this wouldn't have concerned me as much, but every now and then Kipper seemed to have a little trouble with some of these. I know that he is always shaky to start the season, but usually after that he develops some consistency. We didn't see that this season. Instead he seemed to go on streaks where he would shut downthe opponents for several games, and then he'd have a few games where he'd be letting in five to seven goals. Lately he started to come around a little though, so I'm a little less concerned than I was a few weeks ago. I think the major concern in regards to goaltending for the Flames is who is sitting on the players' bench. I'm sure that Detroit fans are a lot more comfortable with Chris Osgood riding their pine, than us Calgary fans are with Jamie McLennan. No disrespect to Noodles intended, but I just don't think we can win this series without Kipper in net...

Defence

When it comes to the blueline, neither of these teams are really lacking in talent. The Red Wings' blueline includes what could easily be considered the most complete defenceman in the last 10 years (if not longer), in Nicklas Lidstrom. Sharing the back end with him are Mathieu Schneider, Chris Chelios, Danny Markov, Brett Lebda, Andreas Lilja, and the injured Niklas Kronwall (probably being replaced by rookie Kyle Quincey). Much like in between the twine, a big concern here could be age. Lidstrom is 36, Schneider is 37, and Chelios is a staggering 45 years old. I have no doubt of Lidstrom's abilities to keep up with the game, but with Kronwall out the Red Wings are likely going to have to get a little more playing time out of Schneider at least. The Red Wings have no real depth at this position, so for every guy that goes down from their big minute guys, they take a huge hit in terms of effectiveness. When your replacement for your top young defenceman has only played 6 NHL games (4 of which were in the final 4 games of the season), you could be in for some serious trouble. A position I normally see as a strength for the Red Wings could easily turn into a weakness...

When you look at the roster sheet for the Calgary D-men, something that becomes readily identifiable is that 6 of their top 8 defencemen were first round draft picks, and another was an early second round pick (Warrener at 27th overall). The only guy that wasn't picked in the top 30 of his draft year was Mark Giordano, who wasn't even drafted (so essentially, no Flames defenceman was drafted later than 27th overall). In fact, there are even 1st, 2nd, and 3rd overall picks on the roster. Which would make you think that the boys should be damn near dominant in games. But for some reason they aren't. The oldest blueliner on the roster is only 33 (Roman Hamrlik), so you know that age isn't the issue. They just can't seem to get the job done when it comes to clearing the zone or keeping shots to the outside. I realize that just because a player is drafted high doesn't mean he will be an all-star, but he should be pretty well versed in the position. I'm not sure how these guys will perform on the big stage, but you would have to think that they have stepped up their game before when it mattered, so they should be able to do it when it really counts, right? RIGHT? The one thing we do have over the Red Wings in this department is our depth (a lesson learned from our last cup run and vital since Regehr is currently out), so I think we have the advantage in this department, Lidstrom or not...

Forwards

This is one area where I do have to admit a fairly big gap in knowledge about the opponent. Beyond the top line of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Holmstrom, I haven't heard very much about these guys all year. I know Lang is still there, but he is obviously not the player he was when he first got to Motown (especially at the age of 36). Bertuzzi is expected to miss the first game, but I'm not convinced he isn't still the shell of the player that dominated in Vancouver. And to that note, I don't think he would be effective outside the top line anyway (and I don't know that they would move Holmstrom to the second line). Once you get past these players, I haven't heard a whole lot about the rest of the Red Wing forwards this season. I remember Daniel Cleary and Kyle Calder from junior, as well as Jiri Hudler and Johan Franzen, but they have not been the force they were expected to be in the NHL. Calder was on a short tear when he got to Detroit from Philly, but what has he done since then? I know this may be a foolish notion, but I think that if our defencemen can contain the top line and keep Bertuzzi out of the crease, we should be alright...

When it comes to the Flames forwards, I think it all comes down to Jimmy Playfair developing some consistency in his lines. I think we have a pretty solid top 5 forwards in Iginla, Langkow, Tanguay, Huselius, and Conroy. I would put these guys in lines, but you know that Playfair is just going to move them around throughout the game anyway. I'm starting to think the guy overmanages some aspects of the game, while neglecting others. But I'll save the Playfair talk for later. Filling out the top two lines would ideally be David Moss, who has appeared to come from nowhere this season to play an integral part for the Flames (beyond scoring goals, he also occasionally keeps Amonte off the top two lines). With Friesen out (I have completely reversed on my earlier opinion of him), it looks like the grind line will probably be Yelle, Nilson, and possibly Amonte, with Ritchie, Primeau, and Lombardi forming the other line. When McCarty returns he will probably bump Ritchie up to the press box, but we'll cross this bridge when we come to it. Overall, I'm fairly confident this group can do well. We have speed on every line to keep the Red Wings defencemen on their toes and to potentially expose any weaknesses from their lack of depth. The Friesen loss hurts a little, as he is one of our better forecheckers, but I think we have enough depth on the bench to provide a stopgap while he's gone...

Coaching

This is one area that I certainly think that Calgary is at a disadvantage. I know very little about Mike Babcock, beyond him taking the Mighty Ducks to the finals in his first season. He missed the playoffs in his second season before going over to Detroit following the lockout. I have read that he is a bit of a talker, but beyond that and his rollercoaster coaching record (which, in fairness, mostly took place in the roller coaster world of junior hockey), I don't know much about him. But I haven't really heard any bad things...

Jim Playfair on the other hand, hasn't really won over any fans since he took over the reigns from Darryl Sutter. In addition to his bad suits (although I have seen a couple that were kinda decent), he seems to lack confidence. He sets lines at the beginning of games that seem to be doing alright, but then he'll start changing them up as the game goes on (which could probably go a ways to explain those blown third period leads). He is constantly biting his nails and making other nervous gestures that I'm sure don't inspire the troops on his bench. He rarely makes real in-game adjustments to his strategies, beyond the afore-mentioned line blending. He's not much of a talker when it comes to the media either. And, worst of all, I think Amonte intimidates him with his hair, because somehow GrandpAmonte is always on the ice in the dying minutes of every period. If the Flames go to overtime at any point in this series, I have a feeling Tony will keel over after having played twenty straight minutes of hockey. I know the guy USED TO be a goal scorer, but come on, there is a lot more talent on the roster. He's not exactly Mr. Clutch (I miss Gelinas). Playfair passed on the head coaching job the first time it was offered to him because he said he wasn't ready. I think that is still the case. The only real saving grace here is that I think Darryl Sutter will be keeping a close eye on what's going on, and will step in to provide some assistance if/ when he has to. I think if Playfair can find a nice tailor before tonight's game, and get a suit that fits nice and can instill a little self-confidence, he might have a chance of giving his boys a bit of a moral boost. Come on Jimmy, SUIT UP!

Intangibles

How's this for an intangible? I was just informed through Dave over at Open Ice Hits that Mick McGeough has been named as a ref for the opening game tonight. Seriously? What did the Flames fans do to deserve this? Or fans in general actually? I had planned on discussing things like how the teams are pretty even against each other this year, with both teams sweeping at home. Or discussing their respective performance at even strength and on the power play and penalty kill, but this one just took over. This is no longer a Calgary vs Detroit series, but is now the Mick McGeough show. I'm going to have to buy more beer before the opening faceoff tonight...

Additionally, as I don't think I've pointed out yet, the Red Wings are old (Average age 31.2 years). I'm not sure how they would last in a long series, especially if the games start going into overtime. The oldest team to win the cup was a Leaf team (can't recall the year off-hand) at 31 years (and you can obviously guess that that was a long time ago)...

Oh yeah, and apparently a number of guys from the Flames have died their hair black (notably Kiprusoff, Huselius and McCarty), with Darren's spiked into a mohawk. I can just imagine if he still has his chin hair and he slicks it. The guy ALREADY looked like the devil. Intimidation?

Playoff Predictions - Round 1

2007-04-11T14:34:00.000-04:00

Crapshoot...

I figure that I might as well put my guesses for each series out there now, as I don't think I'll be done my Flames vs Wings preview until sometime tomorrow (hopefully before the puck drops in Detroit)...

Eastern Conference

(1) Buffalo Sabres vs (8) New York Islanders

This is the one series that I could see only lasting 4 games. With DiPietro out, I just don't have any faith in Dubielewicz or Dunham to get the job done between the pipes for the Islanders. Heck, even with Ricky in minding the mesh, I'd still take this Sabres team to sweep the series. The four lines they roll are just that good...

Sabres in 4

(2) New Jersey Devils vs (7) Tampa Bay Lightning

I have no idea how the NHL thinks they can screw over CBC this badly by taking away a Saturday night Senators - Penguins game giving them this one as the Saturday night matchup instead. Seriously. This is going to be one of the least memorable series in Stanley Cup playoff history. Of course, you can say that about just about every New Jersey series. I'm so happy I won't be staying in Saturday night (not that I stay in any other night either, but I'm just saying)...

Devils in 6 very long and boring games (may not technically take forever, but it sure will seem like it)

(3) Atlanta Thrashers va (6) New York Rangers

This is one of those series that the people against divisional seeds will hold up as a reason to get rid of an automatic top 3 seed for divisional winners. And for very good reason. Although I have a feeling that the Rangers are fine with it, as otherwise they'd be playing Ottawa or Pittsburgh and who would want that (besides Gary Bettman). Atlanta has a pretty decent young goaltender and some strong scorers, but are weak at the back end. Of course, the same could be said about the Rangers. I just think the team from Manhattan is gelling a lot more right now...

Rangers in 6

(4) Ottawa Senators vs (5) Pittsburgh Penguins

This is being regarded as the marquee matchup of the first round, and for good reason. Both these clubs play fast, exciting hockey and feature a star player that was a phenom as a junior. Pittsburgh has a young squad that has really come around the last half of the season, while Ottawa hasn't exactly been sitting on its heels after a bad start. This series really could go either way, but I'll take the more experienced Senators for this year (and probably the Penguins if there was a rematch next year)...

Senators in 7

Western Conference

(1) Detroit Red Wings vs (8) Calgary Flames

Obviously I'm a whole lot biased in this one. I think the Flames have underperformed all season and are ready to come out of their funk. Of all the matchups that Calgary could have had, this is the one that best suits them. I think they match up quite favourably against the Red Wings and will surprise a fair number of people. But for more of my analysis, just check out my more in depth preview...

Flames in 6

(2) Anaheim Ducks vs (7) Minnesota Wild

The not so mighty Ducks have had a fairly potent offence all season and with Giguere faltering a little of late, have needed to rely on scoring to keep them atop the Pacific division. Unfortunately for them, the Wild don't play that style. Minnesota relies on being smart in their own end, and also have an offensive punch in Rolston and Gaborik. As good as the dynamic duo of Pronger and Niedermayer are on the point for Anaheim, I just don't think they'll get the power play opportunities that they'll need in this series...

Wild in 7

(3) Vancouver Canucks vs (6) Dallas Stars

I hate the ocean going spawns of satan and really wish that the Wild had passed them for the division lead. That being said, I think everyone knows of Marty Turco's history in the playoffs and his less than stellar record in the last few series especially. I also think that Luongo will steal at least one series, so it might as well be this one...

Canucks (ugh) in 5

(4) Nashville Predators vs (5) San Jose Sharks

Odd that the two best series will most likely be the 4 vs 5 in each conference. Of course, without the divisional seeding, this wouldn't have happened, but I'm not complaining (as it doesn't really affect my Flames anyway). With the addition of Forsberg, the Predators have added more scoring talent to a team that was already the highest scoring in the Western Conference. Although I do think that he offset the consistency that the team previously had. San jose is nothing to sneeze at though, with Thornton, Cheechoo, Marleau, and Guerin. Both teams have excellent goaltending tandems (which are often important in the playoffs - just ask greaser fans), so its a toss up there. I just don't have any confidence in the Sharks young blueline, so that will have to be my decider...

Predators in 7

Season Summary

2007-04-10T08:14:00.000-04:00

I was MIA over the weekend (well, in the blogosphere anyway), as I was up North for a hockey tournament. For the third year in a row we finished 0-3, but this year we totally outplayed the last two teams, we just couldn't get the bounces in either end...

Did get to hang out with the majority of the Toronto Flames bloggers on Sunday night though. I will not remark on the actual game itself, as it truely appeared as though the boys heads weren't quite in it (not to mention the lack of Calgary's stars). It was cool to meet a couple more of the group, although I didn't see that whole 'Usual Suspects' moment coming...

Finishing off the season with 4 consecutive losses wasn't a very impressive way to go out (to say the least), but I've convinced myself that the last two games weren't lost, just given up on...

The road record was obviously ridiculously bad (with the possible exception of that 4 game road trip a couple weeks ago), but I don't think that will roll over into the playoffs. The special teams seemed to pick up near the end of the season, so I don't think they'll be that bad off there either. What I'm most worried about is Jim Playfair's inability to stay with the lineup he set, as well as his inability to adapt late in games. We just have to hope with a playoff series he can at least make game-to-game changes... and not put Amonte on the ice in crucial minutes...

And seriously, get some nicer suits...

Apparently if you google 'Eddy Belfour drunk', the first result links to the player profile I created...

Gameday - Sharks

2007-04-05T18:47:00.000-04:00

The Flames are at the Shark Tank tonight taking on San Jose.

This is a big game for the Flames, as a win puts our boys into the playoffs and a loss, combined with a win for the Avalanche, keeps us on the edge...

I know we have the 'easy' game coming up on Saturday night, but I'd really rather not give the greasers the chance to play spoiler...

I know that Vancouver beating Colorado tonight is a lot more likely than the Flames winning against one of the better Western Conference teams on the road, but I still would much rather have the win, as the boys still have an outside chance of moving up to 7th...

The Sharks are a solid team. The have a potent offence, a solid young defence, and probably the best goaltending tandem in the NHL right now. Of course, having the best tandem doesn't mean a whole lot when you are only playing one game...

I think the boys can win this one...

Flames over Sharks 3-2 in overtime. Goals by Iginla, Tanguay, Langkow, Guerin, and Marleau...

Postgame - Avalanche

2007-04-04T01:07:00.000-04:00

That could have gone better...

Hmmm, that was not the outcome I was looking for...

A chance for our boys to finish off their only remaining competition for the final playoff spot in our own barn and we missed it...

Not cool...

From what I saw of the last two periods, it doesn't look like the Avalanche outplayed us at all, they just got some better bounces...

And the questionable calls from the boys in stripes...

I think that most of us in Flamesland have resolved ourselves to taking the eighth spot in the playoffs and figure that this game didn't mean much since we still have an 'easy' game against the greasers on Saturday night. And especially since that game will be in the rink of the most dominant home team in the league, that the win is pretty much given...

But I'd rather not rely on that. We have an excellent chance on Thursday night to make a real statement with a road win in the barn of one of the top teams in the Western Conference, and I don't mean the Wild. I mean a team that actually has an explosive offense, with a young, experienced defence and a couple of solid options between the pipes...

The boys blew their chance tonight, but I think they will look at this as one of those rare 'good losses'. The ones that knock you off your pedestal a little bit and let you know that things aren't going to be a walk in the park for the rest of the season. After that 4-0 road trip maybe they needed that. They still have plenty of more opportunities to lock up that final spot, so the wakeup call tonight could have been a good thing...

I actually made the trip downtown (relative to where I live anyway) after my own hockey game to catch the Flames on the big screen(s) at Shoeless Joe's with Walk Invisible and Duncan tonight. We discussed some Flames issues over beer and wings while watching the game that I otherwise would have only gotten to listen to on the radio. Not that there is anything wrong with that option either...

Its always nice to be able to put faces to names (or in some cases, nicknames), and I don't think I could have found better company in the city of Toronto for the game tonight (except maybe if the rest of our little Flames blog community could have made it as well)...

Really looking forward to Sunday night, and hoping that I make it back down to the Big Smoke in time to catch the opening faceoff this time...

Also kinda hoping that the game doesn't matter anymore either...

Oh yeah, and I totally picked Friesen to score a goal tonight (of course, I also picked the Flames to win 5-1, but still)...

Gameday - Avalanche

2007-04-03T17:43:00.000-04:00

The Flames return from an extremely succesful roadtrip (4-0) to host the Avalanche tonight in a game where they can clinch the final playoff spot in the Western Conference...

Prior to the road trip, the boys beat Detroit and Nashville in back-to-back games, so Flames fans are on a bit of a high right now, as well we should be...

In fact, I'm thinking we can still move up a playoff seed or two in this final week. Even though the Wild have an extremely easy remaining schedule, I have a feeling we can take them if the Oilers get lucky for a game or two. Although they are probably a little preoccupied with getting a better draft pick right now...

The Avs haven't been quite as hot lately, which I'm thinking is due to the fact that they don't really have a solid goaltender or defenesive corps. They can score all they want, but somebody has to be keeping the puck out at the other end...

Kipper has really stepped up his game recently, and I'm thinking he's getting ready to roll his way through the playoffs again...

I'm going to be heading down to Shoeless Joe's for the game (after my own game), and I hope to be there by the beginning of the second period. Or to at least catch the last half with WI and possibly Duncan...

Flames win convincingly 5-1, on goals by Iginla (2), Langkow, Huselius, and Friesen, with Wolski answering back for the golf course bound team from Colorado...

Do they have good golf in Denver?

Postgame - Canucks

2007-04-01T13:24:00.000-04:00

That'll just about do it!

Woohoo! Nice job boys! Big win last night!

I PVR'd last nights game, and even though I hadn't used it in almost a month, it came through for me again. So now the record stands at 8-0. Although I don't know what will happen with it in the playoffs...

When I saw the Iggy fight at the beginning of the game, I had a good feeling the Flames would win it, and that first Vancouver goal was just ugly...

I'll probably watch the rest of the game that I missed at some point today, as I didn't catch all of it last night. I caught the first period and a bit at a pub in the Yonge and Eglinton area, but I knew I'd probably be leaving there before the game was over, so that is why I used the PVR. I made it down to the WheatSheaf just after the third started, so I did catch the end of the game there over a couple of Guinness at the bar (sorry you couldn't make it WI, although I don't know that we would have recognized each other anyway)...

Gameday - Canucks

2007-03-31T19:56:00.000-04:00

The boys are on fire right now (well, relatively when you look at their road record for the season), so they head into Vancouver on a high...

They have won all three games of their current road trip and are looking to head home unbeaten...

The only team standing in their way are the current Northwest division champs...

This is a big game for Calgary, as Colorado eked out a win over the Wild this afternoon and the Flames need to regain their lead...

No big news other than that, they just need to keep up what they've been doing...

May try to make it down to the Wheat Sheaf for the last bit of the game, but I'm meeting some friends in the Yonge and Eglinton area first, so there is a good chance I won't make it that far South...

Go Flames!

Postgame - Wild

2007-03-30T01:01:00.000-04:00

I spoke too soon...

So I did predict a re-emergence of Iggy on this roadtrip, but I guess he decided to do it a game earlier than I figured he would. But I'm okay with that...

Don't know who pissed him off in Minnesota the last couple days (maybe he had an incident at the mall?), but I'd like to thank them...

It looks like the number of active bloggers has been fluctuating lately, but maybe the boys needed that. We get sick and they play better. Maybe I need to find somebody with a cough, now that I'm starting to feel a lot better...

Here's hoping the boys can continue it over into Saturday night against the freakin' Canucks...

If any of the Flames fans in Toronto are up to watching that game at a bar or something and wouldn't mind some company, let me know...

Gameday - Wild

2007-03-29T19:41:00.000-04:00

The Flames play their second game of a back to back on the road with the Wild tonight.

Calgary won the Tuesday night matchup in Minnesota 1-0 in a shootout.

Everyone is still waiting for Jarome Iginla to get a little spark and get going, which I don't think will happen until somebody pisses him off. With a mild mannered team like the Wild, I really don't think that will happen tonight, so I'm thinking it'll be another low scoring affair (But I think those ocean going spawns of satan could do it on Saturday night)...

Kipper has been doing pretty good as of late, so I'm thinking we'll see quite a few beauty saves on Demitra and Gaborik tonight...

Calgary wins 2-1 in regulation this time. Goals by Huselius, Langkow, and Demitra...

Go Flames!

One Night Only

2007-03-23T17:37:00.000-04:00

I'll let myself out...

Edmonton takes on the ever-present Avalanche tonight and really need to end this horrible losing streak...

Well, for this game at least...

I started getting worried about Colorado during that 3 games series and they have done nothing to quell my concerns since then...

So lets go Oilers! Slow down that Avalanche!

I refuse to use that term that resembles 'goiters', since it sounds like something somebody mentally deficient would say (like a greaser)...

And by the way, that number I gave you isn't mine... it's for the suicide prevention hotline...

Postgame - Predators

2007-03-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

Taking it to the Predators

I knew you could do it boys!

It turns out that all everyone needed was a little bit of a break and a little faith...

Maybe my TSN turning point was totally ignoring that came that supposedly happened on Saturday...

And the boys rewarded my renewed faith in them after Tuesday's game with the 3-2 overtime win tonight...

Outshooting the number one team in the league is no small feat for this team, especially since they have reportedly gone back towards the defensive system they had under Sutter...

Nice win boys! Beating the top two teams in the Western Conference at home... awesome!

Now lets see if you can take it on the road...

I feel so refreshed...

Gameday - Predators

2007-03-22T18:56:00.000-04:00

You may have noticed that my gameday posts have been getting pretty basic lately and I have neglected to put up a postgame from the Red Wings game on Tuesday night...

To be honest, I haven't had a whole lot of time lately. I've played 5 hockey games in the last four days (was asked to play in another) and tonight is my only break before I play another 8 games in the next 6 days...

If the game starts out poorly tonight I'll probably just go to bed after the first period. Nothing against the boys, but if it doesn't look like they're going to win I'm just going to try to catch up on a tiny fraction of all the sleep I've missed since Sunday...

On to my preview I guess...

Nashville is now number one in the league, passing the Red Wings after Detroit lost to the Flames on Tuesday night...

Calgary still has the league's best home record but hasn't beaten Nashville in the last eight games between the two teams...

But I've heard the boys are going back to their defensive system from the last couple of years, so hopefully they can get the 'W' tonight (and this also probably means that Sutter must have stepped in)...

I honestly think the boys can pull this off tonight. I said that I would believe in our boys if they beat Detroit, so I will...

Calgary wins tonight, 2-0. Goals by Iginla and Phaneuf (PP), and Kiprusoff with the shutout...

Gameday - Red Wings

2007-03-20T17:49:00.000-04:00

The Flames host the Red Wings at the Saddledome. With their road record, every game at home is a must win, no matter who they are playing...

Detroit is on top of the Western Conference right now, so this is obviously going to be a hard game. If the Flames can't win tonight AT HOME against Detroit and then AT HOME on Thursday against Nashville, then they shouldn't be going to the playoffs anyway, as it will probably be a four game blowout regardless of which of these two teams they would have to play...

Everyone knows that the boys have the talent to compete in this conference, they've just been horrendous on defence for the majority of the season, which is supposedly our biggest asset...

As far as I'm concerned, the Flames haven't played since the Dallas game on Thursday. It wasn't on TV anywhere, so it didn't actually happen...

Actually, I was just too busy/ lazy to do any posting this weekend, so I decided to take it off...

I think the boys finally get their heads out of their collective asses tonight and turn it on against a team that doesn't really scare me right now. They probably should, but they don't...

Flames win this one 3-2, and I really don't care who scores for either team. Take this one boys, and I might start caring again...

Give me something to believe in...

Postgame - Stars

2007-03-16T21:19:00.000-04:00

What, there was a game last night?

I know there was a game last night, but I didn't really pay attention...

I knew it was going on, but I decided I would rather not listen to it over the internet as I did my fantasy baseball draft...

I think I followed the March Madness tournament closer on Thursday night, and I don't even like basketball...

I had the Sportsline gamecenter up, but I was only checking it intermittently between my picks...

I'd resigned myself to the loss when heard McLennan would be starting...

I would tell you my thoughts on the game, but at this point, I don't even remember what those were anymore...

I'm almost to the point where I'd be happy if the boys just stayed in the playoff race...

Actually, the real sign of apathy is that I knew I had to post this, but I didn't actually do it until Saturday morning. I just changed the date to make it seem like I cared more than I actually do at this point...

And that's some new artwork I created just for this occasion...

Gameday - Stars

2007-03-15T19:06:00.000-04:00

Thursday, March 15, 2007

6:30 p.m. MST

American Airlines Center

Calgary @ Dallas
Flames PPV

The Flames sputter into Texas tonight to take on the Stars.
Dallas has won their last three games, the last two at home, and haven't played since Tuesday night.
Calgary is coming off a loss to Colorado in Denver last night and I really don't feel the need to talk about their road record.
I'm sure it'll be Marty Turco in net for the Stars tonight, and even though Miikka Kiprusoff started last night for the Flames, he'll probably be tending the twine again tonight.
The leaders for the home team are Jere Lehtinen (24g), Sergei Zubov (36a), Philippe Boucher (46p), Matthew Barnaby (127 PIMs), and Jaroslav Modry (+10).

Alright, so I got into a little trouble from the girl I'm dating for picking against the Flames last night. She said that I probably jinxed the team, so I'm going back on the positive side of things...

And given the lack of scoring from the Stars, I think we can outgun these guys anyway...

Calgary wins 2-1 tonight, with goals coming from Jarome Iginla, Matthew Lombardi, and Boucher...

Postgame - Avalanche

2007-03-15T00:10:00.000-04:00

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Can't say that I didn't see this coming, as I said in my pregame...

The Flames totally got dominated tonight, no matter how flukey that first goal was...

And why didn't Stuart cover Hejduk on that tying goal? He's the number one scorer on the other team, and his man was being covered by somebody else! You can't tell me he had no idea he was over there...

The boys looked like a bunch of Gomers in the third period, running around not knowing what exactly it was they were supposed to be doing...

Yet another good showing by Lombardi in the speed department, and he looked pretty good for most of the game...

Actually, there were a couple Gomers wearing black and white tonight as well. A little quick on the whistle in the Avalanche zone, taking away a potential goal for the Flames. Here's a hint, when you lose sight of the puck, wait a second before blowing the whistle, as there is a chance it may have gone up into the air...

And some of those offsides calls were questionable on both sides of the puck...

I realize that Amonte hit a couple of posts tonight and had some decent chances, but I still wouldn't have had him out on the ice in the final minute of the game...

I feel it is time for me to bring back a little artwork...

For the majority of the third period I was dropping the F-bomb like it was going out of style. Or in other words, like it was a Jimmy Playfair suit...

Gameday - Avalanche

2007-03-14T18:46:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

7:00 p.m. MST

Pepsi Center

Calgary @ Colorado
TSN

The Flames are in Denver tonight, looking to build some space to maintain their current spot in the playoffs.
The Avalanche are coming off an overtime loss to the Wild, but won the previous 5 games.
The Flames are coming off an overtime win over the Blues at home, but have been horrible on the road.
Peter Budaj has been playing well, and will likely get the start for the Avs. Calgary is playing the first of back to back road games (they play in Dallas tomorrow night), so I'd expect McLennan to get the green light tonight.
The stats leaders for Colorado are Joe Sakic (50a, 77p), Milan Hejduk (28g), Ian Laperriere (115 PIMs), and Ken Klee (+11).

I have little optimism for the boys tonight and am tempted to use the power of the PVR, as I can actually get this game. But instead I will just try yelling at the TV nonstop, and see if that works instead...

Avs beat the boys tonight, 4-2. With goals from Jarome Iginla, Kristian Huselius, Sakic, Paul Stastny, Hejduk, and Wojtek Wolski...

Postgame - Blues

2007-03-13T00:33:00.000-04:00

A little too close for comfort...

While its nice to see the boys show that they can win in a shootout (and in a dominant fashion in the process), I'd really rather they not go to shootouts at all. Yes, Iggy can score in the shootout. Yes, Kipper can now shut out the opposing shooters. But I'd really be much more comfortable not having to see them prove it...

To come back from a one goal deficit after the first period only to give up a two goal lead in the third period is a little frustrating...

Huselius was on fire tonight (as best I could tell from the radio feed). A goal to reach 30 on the season (plus three assists)...

Stempniak also showed up for tonight's game, with two lamplighters for the Blues including the tieing goal halfway through the third. The Flames weren't quite Stempniaked, but it looked like they almost could have been...

Lombardi really needed to make full use of his chance on the top line, which he didn't do tonight. And getting a senseless penalty at the end of overtime wasn't the smartest thing either, no matter how borderline the offence actually was...

He's just lucky that Kipper saved his ass...

This game did not exactly instill confidence in me, which has been a running trend the last few weeks. Although it was nice to hear that Playfair actually pulled the boys aside in the third period, which shows that he's at least open to the idea of settling them down during a game (even though it came at least one goal too late)...

Gameday - Blues

2007-03-12T19:44:00.000-04:00

Monday, March 11, 2007
7:30 p.m. MST
Pengrowth Saddledome
St Louis @ Calgary

Sportsnet West

St Louis returns to Calgary tonight to take on the Flames.
The two teams met in St Louis last week, where the Flames won 4-2.
The Blues have losts 3 of their last four, and have gone 3-3-1 since losing Manny Legace to a lower body injury after the February 20th game.
Calgary is coming off an overtime loss to the Lightning at home on Saturday night and are looking to maintain their status as the top home team in the NHL.
Curtis Sanford will likely get the start again for the Blues, as there has been no mention of Legace coming back yet. Jamie McLennan could possibly get the start tonight in place of Flames starter Miikka Kiprusoff.
The leaders for the Blues are, pretty much the same as last week, Lee Stempniak (21g), Doug Weight (37a, 48p), Jamal Mayers (78 pim), and Christian Backman (+11).

The boys better win tonight. I'm tired of being pessimistic and subscribing to doomsday theories of playing the Predators in the first round of the playoffs...

Flames will have their statement game tonight and destroy the Blues 7-2. Goals by Jarome Iginla (3), Daymond Langkow, David Moss, Dion Phaneuf, and Jeff Friesen with his third in as many games. Responding for the road team will be Stempniak and Petr Cajanek...

Postgame - Lightning

2007-03-11T14:10:00.000-04:00

Deja vu all over again...

Maybe I should have just let the PVR handle last night's game...

It was looking decent in the first period, getting lots of shots and controlling a lot of the play. Up until that first goal anyway...

And Friesen added another nice one in the second period, in something of another futile effort (although getting a point is better than nothing)...

When they initially called off that goal by Conroy in the 3rd I think I was about ready to lose it...

And then Lecavalier, of all the fucking people, scores to send it into overtime...

Two stupid penalties at the end of overtime to lead to the third 5-on-3 in the last two games, and eventually the game winner...

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...

Its really looking like we'll be facing off against the Predators to start the playoffs, but I can see us taking it to at least 4 games...

That is, unless the Avalanche catch up to us (and with 3 games remaining against the Flames, they could actually do that)...

Shit...

Gameday - Lightning

2007-03-10T16:42:00.000-05:00

Saturday, March 10, 2007

8:00 p.m. MST

Pengrowth Saddledome

Tampa Bay @ Calgary
CBC

Tampa Bay comes back to Calgary for the first time since the two teams played each other for the Stanley Cup.

The Lightning are playing their 5th game in a 6 game road trip, and are 2-2 thus far. Their most recent game being a win over the Oilers on Wednesday night.

Calgary holds the NHL's best home record at 27-6-1 and are coming of a loss in Nashville on Thursday night.

Marc Denis is the probable starter for the Lightning tonight, up against Miikka Kiprusoff.

The leaders for the Lightning are Vincent Lecavalier (45g), Martin St. Louis (52a, 91p), Andre Roy (104 PIMs), and Nikita Alexeev (+10).

I still hate the Lightning after the Flames lost to them in the finals. They seemed like a bunch of whiners and I'm not a big fan of the Fonz either...

And that puck was in (its too bad we couldn't get Gelinas back just for this game)...

I really don't like these guys so I'm going to say that our boys make a statement and absolutely destroy Tampa 6-1. Goals by Jarome Iginla (3), Craig Conroy, Dion Phaneuf, and Robyn Regehr for the home team. Brad Richards scores for the bad guys...

Postgame - Predators

2007-03-08T22:59:00.000-05:00

No, everything is not alright...

That game sounded as ugly on the radio as those Nashville jerseys look...

Some bad penalties taken by the defencemen...

The game actually sounded like it was pretty even until about halfway through the second period...

Just when I was ready to think they may have gotten over their road problems...

And to think that Jeff Friesen even got another goal...

Since it was to the best team in the NHL, I will refrain from using profanity this time...

Gameday - Predators

2007-03-08T19:47:00.000-05:00

Thursday, March 8, 2007
6:00 p.m. MST
Gaylord Entertainment Center
Calgary @ Nashville

Sportsnet West

The Flames travel to Nashville tonight to take on the top team in the NHL right now.
The Predators are coming off a 5 game roadtrip where they picked up 8 of a possible 10 points.
Calgary is currently on a 5 game winning streak, including the last two on the road.
Chris Mason will get the start against Miikka Kiprusoff.
The leaders for the Predators are Scott Hartnell (22g, inj.), Paul Kariya (45a, 67p), Jordin Tootoo (89 PIMs), and David Legwand (+31).

This is short because I'm running a little late today. I took a nap when I got home from work, and I just woke up half an hour ago...

Nashville has actually gone to the shootout in 5 of their last 7 games, so I'm going to predict a shootout win for the Flames tonight, 3-2. Regulation goals by David Moss, Jarome Iginla, Kariya, and Legwand...

How about a shootout win on the road boys? Do this (or better), and I won't doubt you for the rest of the season...