The playoffs are covered in great depth and I’m not going to try to recount everything that happened last night. However, here are the pressing things I saw in simple form.
- The Flames completely dominated early in the game, and they are still feeling the effects of the snakebite that caused the late-season swoon. People who weren’t paying attention at the end will look at their record and get half the story: that they lost most of their games where it counted. That doesn’t show that they outplayed many of those opponents and couldn’t get pucks in the net. I have no time for moral victories, and putting the puck in the net is the name of the game, but my point remains that if pucks start going in the net, look out. This is a team that can generate sustained pressure against any team in the NHL. Iginla, in particular, missed golden opportunities he never used to miss. Maybe he’s a step slow, maybe it’s bad luck, I don’t know. I just know they might start going in at any time and things could roll.
- Jokinen passes up a lot of good shots and he never used to do that. His confidence is surely low right now, but someone needs to tell him to shoot the darn puck.
- I don’t understand the Anders Eriksson situation and I don’t even know what else to say about it other than, if you would have told me he would play top-4 minutes in a Flames playoff game ever again after his rotten performance last year in the playoffs, I’d have laughed at you. He was -2 last night in a 3-2 loss, his FIRST NHL GAME OF THE YEAR! Go figure.
- Not having Regehr is disastrous. It’s simply disastrous. People like to point at the defensive depth the Flames have, but Anders Eriksson played top 4 minutes last night.
- Jordan Leopold is terrible. I’ve been saying it for several weeks. I like him. He led the Gophers to a national championship. He’s terrible. He’s figured into the key goals in many of the recent losses and his turnover in the first seconds of OT yesterday and his inability to keep the Hawks forwards from climbing all over Kiprusoff should have his butt planted firmly on the bench if Regehr ever comes back.
- That first goal Kiprusoff gave up was terrible.
- The OT goal shouldn’t have counted. Enough said. It shouldn’t have, it did, and we move on.
- It’s just one game. I always hate to lose game 1 because the other club gets to play with house money for at least one game (and it’s liberating to do so), but the Flames will win if they play like they did last night. This will bother me today and then tomorrow I’ll start looking forward to game 2.
- I need to remember to enjoy this. Keenan may not be with the Flames next year, thus ending my interest i the Flames, yet here he is with them in the Stanley Cup playoffs and a legitimate chance to go deep. Have fun with it.
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