Posts Tagged ‘Flames’
The Calgary Flames had a team with no business losing in the first round. That’s not taking anything away from Chicago, who played a great series. Still, the Flames geared up roster-wise for this series and expected more.
Let’s keep in mind that Iginla forgot to show up for most of the series. Jokinen showed one game of solid effort. Kiprusoff was his usually horrible self come April.
Let’s also keep in mind that the Flames were without their top defenseman, Robyn Regehr, and Dion Phaneuf for the final game.
Still, when all is said and done, the coach often (unfairly) takes the blame for these kinds of series. And, it’s not like a person can completely ignore the way the season went. After a rough start, the team completely re-tooled their defensive game and went on an amazing tear where they seemed to win the division early in the game. Except, they peaked too early and never regained that consistency they once had. Maybe that is a coach’s problem, I’m not sure.
If I had to put a few fingers on what happened in this series I would point to a few things that really were to blame for series loss for the Flames:
- First and foremost, take away any team’s best defenseman and their chances decrease to almost none. Think about if Boston lost Chara, if the Wings lost Lidstrom, or if Anaheim lost Pronger. All three teams would have trouble winning a playoff series without that guy, and all three are very good teams.
- There were a lot of other injuries that played a key role. All teams are playing hurt this time of year, but when you lose your top two centermen in the same game, lose a 20-goal scorer for a game and a half, and lose your 2nd best defenseman for a critical game 6, you are playing without a very realistic chance. Sure, Keenan and the boys put on a good face and didn’t cry victim, but the post-mortem should show that this was the case.
- Kiprusoff was terrible again. I know people will like to point to some of the goals and say that he didn’t have a chance, but the teams that win have goalies that stop those kinds of shots in games where they’ve only allowed 12-13 shots over the first two periods. They just do, and Kiprusoff has not proven to be a big-game goalie. He had one good, seemingly lucky post-season and many of the first-round exits of late can be blamed mostly on him.
- Jokinen did not live up to the playoff expectations, and Iginla has lost a step. The former might have been expected, but the latter is disappointing. Actually, this wasn’t just evident in the post-season. Iginla is a half-step slow on everything he used to be able to do. Rarely does he get a good, clean wrister to the net. It always seems that a guy at least gets a deflection out of play on every shot Iginla takes. Only a bad bounce seems to find Iginla in a scoring opportunity. I know people focus on Iginla, but they always have. He simply doesn’t have what it takes to beat that anymore. Other guys that are the focus of the opposing team get theirs. Iginla just doesn’t have that anymore.
- The Flames were tired. They played much of the last two weeks short on players because they couldn’t afford to field a full roster and stay under the cap. That’s a huge disadvantage, not only in terms of wins and losses at the end of the year (and it ultimately cost them the division and an easier first round series against the Blues), but it also caused a lot of extra wear and tear on the Flames best players just before the playoffs.
It’s likely that Keenan will be the fall guy and very quickly. I don’t think he should be, but reality says that this is what happens when a team can’t seem to get over the hump. If Darryl Sutter is smart and calculated, however, he’ll realize that there were a lot of circumstances that were far more to blame than a coach who managed a competitive series while having to play the likes of Warrent Peters and Anders Eriksson (Eriksson’s first action of the entire season coming in the post-season).
It’s unfortunate. My interest in the NHL playoff took a serious hit this evening.
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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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“Everything isn’t traditional with Mike, as you see. He does things a little differently sometimes, which I think has been good for us. We usually know if things are good or bad. Mike loves winning. We all love winning. But he loves it as much as any coach I’ve ever played for.” -Jarome Iginla on Mike Keenan
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Cammalleri could be dealt. He is another option for the Pens, but I truly feel that the Flames may be having their slump at the perfect time. This team is too good to panic.
This is one of the most incredible statements I’ve seen all year and it proves that this guy is full of crap. Can someone, with a straight face, claim that a team so far ahead in their division and locked into a solid playoff spot barring historic collapse is going to trade their top scorer? Give me a break, Eklund. No, wait, I’ve taken the break upon myself.
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Tonight’s game is sure to be a treat. Besides two of the top teams in the league doing battle, we have the Flames coming off of a Darryl Sutter closed-door meeting and a Keenan tirade.
I’m looking forward to this one.
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I just got done talking about how great Bertuzzi has been playing, and lauded him for his newfound discipline, and he comes out last night and throws a stinker of a game at the Dallas Stars. I hope that it was merely a matter of having some dead feet and being a little lazy, but one could make the argument that he cost them any chance at gaining some points.
I’ll admit that, when you looked at the schedule before the year, this particular game (before we knew Dallas would get off to a slow start) was one of those they had the least chance of winning. It was the second game of a back-to-backer, the first of which was a tough divisional game, and they had to travel fast and warp forward a time-zone. Still, Dallas played a pretty strict game and it would have only taken a good break in the last half of the third and they would have escaped with at least a point. Instead, they played 40% of that 10 minutes short-handed thanks to two bone-headed penalties by Todd Bertuzzi.
While this loss isn’t a killer, it does magnify a below-average performance from the night before. Couple that with another tough game tomorrow night against Chicago and then Saturday against Anaheim, and we could be looking at the first 3- or 4-game losing streak in a while. On the other hand, tomorrow night’s game is a great opportunity to prove that Calgary is in the top-class in the Western Conference if they can come off of two hard-fought losses and beat a talented Chicago team.
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As I stated before, one of the keys to the Flames’ success is going to be limiting the ice time of their defensive liabilities. Adrian Aucoin (not exactly a brilliant defender, but still better than the alternative) picked up 23 minutes of ice time while Cory Sarich only gathered 14 minutes. It is particularly important to keep Sarich off the ice when offensive forwards, like Bertuzzi, are on. Bertuzzi had a quarter the Flames’ giveaways last night.
The line of Iginla, Cammalleri, and Lombardi was superb. As one of the commentators on Rogers Sportsnet said last night, it seems that Iginla needs a change of scenery every now and then (in terms of linemates). He seems energized when he gets to spur on some fresh faces. Remember that last year it was a shift in December that sent Kristian Huselius on the tear of his career and the Flames on the most dominant run of the entire regular season by any team.
Rene Bourque was especially good last night as well. He seems to be taking more of the pool of minutes designated, in a cluster, to himself, Primeau, and Nystrom.
The upcoming home-and-home with the Canucks will be another great gauge for where the Flames actually are right now. The Flames have won 3 of their last 4 but aren’t getting much credit for it considering who the wins came against (and despite an excellent hockey game with the Wings, that they lost). Actually, the Avs aren’t that bad. The Kings…they ARE that bad.
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It was inevitable that, barring a 5- or 6-0 run to start the season that the Keenan-is-on-the-hot-seat goofballs would be at it already. Even without any apparent evidence writers like Allan Maki of the Globe and Mail are saying things like Keenan is as popular in the dressing room as “foot fungus.” (You might want to check with the Captain on that, Mr. Maki, as it is pretty clear Iginla has had a rebirth under Keenan.) Strangely, though, Mr. Maki also goes on to point out all of the reasons the Flames have started inconsistently for the second straight season — the same reasons this campaign as the first — and none of them are Keenan’s fault.
- Bad defensive corps — while Regehr and Phaneuf are very good, Sarich and Aucoin are puck-panickers while Vandermeer and Giordano are a bit green.
- Very weak centermen — they are unable to win a big faceoff for anything, particularly when they are up a goal in the late stages of the game
- Kiprusoff is one of the worst goaltenders in the league. “What,” you say? Take a look at the numbers. There are 42 goalies currently on pace to play at least 27 games — ESPN.com’s criteria to be among the league leaders in stats — and Kiprosoff is 38th in Goals Against Average and tied for 37th in Save Percentage. Look at the goalies that are around that level in either category and their teams are the worst in the league while Calgary has somehow elevated their record to 3-3-1 after their come-from-behind victory last night where they scored 5 unanswered to beat Nashville 5-3.
I always expect to see these kinds of articles, but it really is amazing how the media is out to get coaches fired. Clearly there is something in it for them — a rash of new article ideas on what kind of car said-new-coach drives and how glued he is to his Blackberry in between periods or whatever other bizarre things they can come up with. The fact is that Keenan has done a very good job with very little performance from some key guys. While some of it is within his control (he needs to start getting tough on these guys that take stupid penalties), you can’t MAKE a goalie play better. With a little better play from Kiprusoff (yes, just a little better), the Flames would be 5-1 right now.
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Two games into the season and some are already calling for Mike Keenan’s head. I’m sure it was his fault that Kiprusoff, a seemingly top-five goaltender in the league, has turned in two stinkers already. I’m sure it is his fault, also, that the referees were quite choosy in swallowing whistles at the end, with the game ending when a non-call on a trip turned around and into the game-winning goal.
All that, and they’ve played two games against one of the most improved teams in the NHL — that’s it — two games against the same team. Perhaps we might have a tad more patience. If the same trend is holding through around year’s end, I can’t say I’d blame them for cutting loose Keenan, Sutter, and the whole lot.
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I remember seeing games like this last year, when the Flames never had a chance. This one feels a little different — the sting isn’t quite there. Perhaps that is due in part to it being the first game of the season. Perhaps it is due in part to opening on the road against one of the most improved teams in the league. Mostly, though, the Flames look like a much better team than last year. In fact, had they been able to convert on their 5 on 3 in the first period this game might have been different.
A couple of things are for certain:
- They need Regehr in the lineup come Saturday, when they get a rematch against the Canucks.
- Kiprusoff has to cut down on the massive rebounds. He need only look across the ice at the masterful job that Roberto Luongo did in tonight’s game.
It would be nice to see the Flames at least get one to prove it’s possible on Luongo. At this point even that looks pretty bleak.
Regardless, hockey’s back.
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