Getting the bounces

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…