cross16

It is ip to players to execute and they isn’t happening with enough consistency for sure. But it’s also up to the coach and coaching staff to have the right message and situation to allow players to step into that space and the excute. If you have a poor atmosphere or a poor message it’s very challenging to expect players to execute at a high level. I don’t think it’s fair to blame this all on coaching but I think it’s absolutely fair to question whether or not the flames have the right atmosphere to be successful.

This has been hinted at all year. Getting louder now. Walsh is not the only person questioning the moral

goaltending is not to blame tonight.

Credit to Detroit. They are playing great but this is as lost a flames team as I’ve seen all season. Totally disjointed in all phases. very worrisome at this point in the season.

Can complain about Markstrom all you want but Vladar hasn’t claimed the net either. Why Sutter can’t give either a run or games.

Flames are getting dummied tonight. This is brutal.

offensively for sure but I don’t think I’d mention him with those guys. Those guys produce offense but also limit things defensively too. Karlsson gives up a ton when he’s on the ice. Some fair points and I did admit it’s a case study for sure, I’m just skeptical it will work. I could be wrong but I just don’t think the outscore your opponents approach works in the playoffs. I have no problem with the oilers going all in, they really should have last year, I just think they are after the wrong target.

The Oilers problems are 3 fold IMO 1. They rely too much on McDavid 2. They are a below avg defending team 3. Their goaltneding is avg at best The OIlers are already very good at: 1. McDavid/Draistil getting their points 2. The PP Karlsson's main strengths are things the Oilers are already very good at so how does he address their deficiencies?

I'm not saying it's a downgrade but my point is where does this move the needle? How does it make them a better team and a better cup contender? I think you are also underrating Bouchard here (see below) If it doesn't than what's the point of giving up so many assets if you are not moving the needle?

Highlight reel save from Flames 7th rounder Arsenii Sergeev

So is Karlsson. I really hope the OIlers do that because I see that blowing up in their face personally. Karlsson has the points and it shouldn't be discounted how he's bounced back but you could argue that Bouchard is the better all around dman today. To give up him plus everything else for a soon to be 33 year old dman, i'm hear for it.

Timely goals and timely saves. Got the goals and once again couldn’t get the saves. pretty demoralizing loss. Sabres game was certainly not the launching point you were looking for,which is not shocking. This team is not giving you signs a win streak is coming.

Interesting strategy the oilers are embarking on. Basically giving up on ability to defend in order to just outscore everyone to death apparently. Bold strategy with the goaltending they have could work for sure but it’s a peculiar strategy to me. Have to be able to defend in this league to win and the oilers are already not great at it so doubling down on it with a Karlsson acquisition would be an interesting case study.

agreed. These are tough games to evaluate. I do think the flames played pretty well but the game really was lopsided because the Sabres goalie was pretty bad. credit to the flames for taking advantage and I hope they can build off this confrats to Pelletier on a great first goal. Really nice to see that and nice to see Markstrom with some key saves.

Agree with People,last year wasn’t a case of the top line not playing Sutter hockey. It was a case of have 2 unique and elite players in particular Gaudreau. Gaudreau has such an elite and rare ability to create space for himself and linemates and that’s why that line thrived. Really tough skill set to replace and not really a skill set that Huberdeau brought. It’s why once they got into the playoffs and space got even more limited that line struggled. So it’s led to their quality being down, which means they’re in tighter/low scoring games and it’s caused them to cheat and give up more on the backend. But structurally, this isn’t a change from what they did last year. Just lacking the unique personnel. Doesn’t help their PP either. as it was said when he was hired, Sutter isn’t a good fit for how this roster is built, they just had unique talent that masked it last year and now without it the same truth applies. I’m not a believer this team can have success under Sutter and that’s not to say he is a problem, I just don’t think the fit is there. Think they had their shot with him last year and I’m not sure they can find another one without Sutter making some big changes to his approach

Every year is different. I don't think it's reasonable to say because it's not clicking this year then it won't in other years. Huberdeau, Mang, Markstrom, Weegar all have avg to down years and I think it's very reasonable to think that pattern to break in a new season. NHL has turned into a parity driven league and there are plenty of example of things changing year by year. Timeline is short no question. I figure this group has 3-4 years to do something before pain sets in. Certainly not ideal to have a year not go their way but seems to be the reality they are faced with.

This is a tough one because Mang-Coleman and Backs have been excellent. About the only consistent line they have right now but I'd be really tempted to do this Huberdeau- Lindholm - Dube Mang - Kadri - Toffoli Pelletier - Backs - Coleman I don't mind doing Pelletier-Kadri- Toffoli, just always love how Backs brings the best out of young guys. but ya it's time for a lineup change. I don't really understand the reluctant to move guys around given there results are avg at best, outside of the Backlund line.

Just looking like it's not there this year. Issues with chemistry, issues with coaching, guys getting frustrated/not playing well, sub par goaltending, communication issues on the back end. Running out of time for me to think this team can just flip a switch. I think this was always going to be a season where the Flames were not going to be a good regular season team and there ability to do anything was really going to come down to getting hot at the right time. There is still some time for that but this team isn't playing the type of hockey that makes you think that is coming right now. This volume game they are playing is just pure crap to me and I wish media would stop talking about it. I don't' give a crap if you outshoot a team 2-1 if you are throwing noting but soft pucks on net all net. Such an archaic way to play the game.

Thanks. My apologies I copied the link out of the article so not sure why that happened but i've removed it.

Pretty good read here from former NHL goalie Mike McKenna. Goes through what he sees in Markstrom, why he is struggling and takes a pretty balanced look at things IMO. Worth the read https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/diagnosing-jacob-markstrom-why-has-the-calgary-flames-goalie-fallen-off-a-cliff

Ya it hasn't been very good IMO. To give them a bit of a break they've handled it like most pro sports team do but I think they incorrectly assumed they'd garner public support no matter what. Easy to blame 1 person but CalgaryNext fell flat because it never really garnered much public support. I remember most didn't really like the idea, hated the roof and then once that report came out showing it would cost over 1.5 billion the majority of Calgarians weren't for it. It never really got off the ground with most citizens in this city and I think in large part because CESC really misread their support and how the landscape has changed. Elements of it were cool. Have a football stadium DT would have been cool, the idea to have it right on the river was very cool but the project was just totally unfeasible iMO and not just because of the cost. The location was (and iMO still isn't) very good when you really think about it. I think the Victoria Park option is truly their best option for a new building.

I'm not sure how much more evidence and hockey we need to watch to see that Huberdeau and Kadri don't work well. It's been a while since I've since this many frustrating lineup decisions for a Flames team. As connundrumed said why is Zadorov on the ice in OT? Weegar is one of their best skating dman, why does he never see the ice in OT? Huberdeau is literally one of the best 3 on 3 players the game has seen since it was adopted and he gets stapled to the bench. Why would you not use this as a means for a player to get their confidence? I don't give a Satoshi Nakamoto if he took a bad penalty 1 time, you don't need to cut your nose off to spite your face. Your PP is struggling and you've got a wicked pure shooter in Lindholm. Why are you not running the cross seam play or getting him into open areas to shoot the puck? Weegar did a great job on the PP in Florida, why never use him here? Constantly banging my head against the wall with the club this year.

A lot of misinformation here. The $890 million was only the cost to build the facilities. The entire project was going to cost over 1.5 billion and the city on the hook for over 1 billion. The $285 million for a fieldhouse is not a new commitment. Pre CalgaryNext the City had plans to build a fieldhouse and set aside a $250 million budget item to do so, they just never funded it. CalgaryNext incorporated the fieldhouse as a way to move that budget item into the project and to gain more public dollars but the plans have existed since before CalgaryNext. The BMO expansion talks were underway while CalgaryNext was being discussed and is a entirely separate project. Not sure why the commitment there has anything to do with CalgaryNext as the need for a convention center existed before, and would have existed after, CalgaryNext or any arena.

Oscar Dansk had quite the collision before the all star break so this would appear injury related. I'd really like to see Chechelev in at least a few AHL games though

While I don't think it's fair to say he cost them the game, I also don't think he was good enough nor do I think giving him props for outplaying a backup is fair. He should be their starting goalie and you need your starting goalie to win you a game like last night. It's a tricky one because the Flames were really leaky defensively and gave up way too much quality but at the same time if you want to be a starter you need to step up when your team isn't at their best. I don't think i can fine more than a game or 2 this season where Markstrom has been there to bail out his team, but it's been the other way around quite a bit. Story of Markstrom's season has mostly been solid but not good enough and I think that was repeated last night. He wasn't bad but he also wasn't good enough. It's just way too hard to win consistently in this league if your goaltending if following that script.