travel_dude

So much for the big lead. Yikes.

We still are leading this game. LOL. Oh, you mean the season. No such luck. WPG sucking fumes today. NAS lost big time to SEA. Unfortunately, the bandaid is still attached at one end. Won't come off and is really getting sticky. Other than the score, we are losing the game from the 10 minute game onward.

Oh my. Collapse or what.

Funny how half a shift with Huberdeau results in a goal. Pretty passing play.

Fast start. Weegar and Toffoli with actual goal scorer goals.

Thnaks Deeds. Perhaps you have better luck than me. Well thought out, and I do like the Boston albums.

Well, you are not likely to sell either player. Impossible trade and I can't recall any like that where you have max term and high dollars. I don't even buy that they want the coach gone, but I do think they have opinions about play that are being ignored. Mange is a sell low value. Weegar is fine, in fact one of the better ones here. Zaddy is about what you expect for a 3rd pairing. I like his skating, which he doesn't use enough. Sorry, but Sutter HAD systems that work. I'm not sure how much credit he deserved for last year, since the same goalies let in more this year. If you need 10 shutouts a year to be on pace to get into the playoffs and get a high seed, then you will be disappointed almost every time. Is possession hockey a good thing? Why not, if it keeps the puck out of your net. High volume shooting? Sure, if you want to give up possession and take shots from everywhere. Firing one coach doesn't fix enough. PP still sucks. Defense maybe needs an overhaul, not just the players? Goalies need help or replacement. Too many guys that just move the puck around.

It would seem that the coach feels that the only thing to do is try to win now. No view to the future, maybe using top prospects and playing them in pressure situation. Just keep going with the same losing formula. The limited changes he makes don't really pay off. Play Duehr for one shift with Kadri. They score against us on the shift, so back to usual lines. Stay with the same vets because they give you more of the same season results. Go with the same goalie, since you need to get him going so he can feel better missing the playoffs. I do think you see the players start to mail it in. What are they playing for now? To help the coach keep his job? Do most of the guys coming back next year really want that same gameplan?

Really hard to tell when we play the current starter well past the obvious point in the season. This should have been the year to see what the backup was all about. We chose to treat him like a backup and use his less than stellar starts as an excuse to go back to the crap. At one point, the records and stats were stark differences. Now, that has regressed. Both goalies seem to be suffering from subtle changes to the play in front of them. Markstrom letting in 5-hole and far post goals. Vladar getting beat on high shots. Markstron not holding the goal line on greasy goals. Vladar getting beat on rising shots on the rush. Don't know if you can just explain them as not being good enough. Losing games where you face less than 23 shots. Every odd man rush is a goal.

The year of Tkachuk, we win one too many to get 3rd overall and one too few to get Laine. Before that we lose the lotto and get 4th and pick the wrong player for us. Before that we lose the lotto and get 6th, while almost losing that pick because of a dumb GM.

No point until we are actually in a lotto spot, right?

How so?

When I look at WAS, I think they are still motivated to win. Can only lose so many. BUFF catches teams off guard and can score. OTT is all in, they are trying to sell the team. You give it your all for a team in that situation. But, the lotto rules don't favor us. If CGY announced they were moving ahead on an arena, we would be all set. We would get the lotto win. Need to be in the right spot for that.

I almost don't need to look. NMC Kadri - M-NTC in 26/27 Markstrom - full until UFA in 2026 M-NTC Hiberdeau - until the end of the year, then NMC for all but last 2 years Backlund - 10 teams he is willing to go to Hanifin - well we waiting, now 8 team no trade list Tanev - 10 team no trade list

The chances of signing him this weekend are pretty high. Not sure what his education status is, whether he's completed the year yet or not, or whether he has some scolarship requirements remaining. Regardless, what would be the plan? Insert him in the lineup, while sitting out two other young players? Start the kid line of Pelletier-Ruzicka-Coronato? Other than the money, it would be frustrating to move to a city to just practice for the remaining time. I just don't see Sutter using him with any trust. Hasn't watched him live before. No training camp views.

I find it difficult to stomach seeing them play a strong game against a tough team, only to see them wilt against a basement team. Nothing has changed. The big push to make the playoffs when it's was critical....We trade wins and losses like 500 hockey is a good thing. Start Markstrom because you need him to get on a run, one he hasn't all year? We started the month in a place within striking distance of a WC spot. 11 of 12 starts for Markstrom and we manage a 4-5-2 record. OT is just another time to watch them fold. One win in a shootout where the only goal actually scored was called back. This is not the way a playoff team plays.

#Flames at practice Friday: Mangiapane-Lindholm-Toffoli Huberdeau-Backlund-Coleman Ritchie-Kadri-Dube Lucic-Lewis-Duehr Pelletier-Ruzicka (extra) Hanifin-Andersson Zadorov-Weegar Gilbert-Stecher Markstrom (starter net) Vladar

Coaching or system. One is working, one is not. Maybe their goalies' bad games have better scoring than our goalies' good games. But keep your head up. We are soon going to get passed by Buffalo, Washington and Ottawa. They can only lose so much, while we can only win so much. At this rate, I doubt we hit 90.

I wasn't going there. We reward based on a season or success with a cup. I had no issue with Coleman when we were closer to being a contender. To make matters worse, we are playing $1M players where they aren't suited. Duehr with hands-of-stone Lewis and Tap-in Lucic. Pelletier (when he was allowed) with top line or forcing Huberdeau to the weak side. Ruzicka, when he manages to have compromizing pics of Sutter, plays with the 4th line. Now the 3rd line is Hiberdeau-Backlund-Coleman. For what? Learn the defensive side like a good little boy? Ruzicka - played like a top liner for a stretch of games, playing with the top line. Duehr played one shift with Kadi. I mean we don't even need to sign/trade for superstars to replace guys like Backlund or Coleman or Mangiapane or Lewis or Lucic or Hanifin or or or....Make trades/sign players that are getting 4th line minutes but are too good for it. No more coach picks. Young guys with speed that can play with guys with speed. Nick Ritchie is a slightly better version of his brother, but isn't or shouldn't be a middle 6 player. Certianly not for that money.

Fair but really is that all we want? We signed Tanev to what seemed high, but he's a warrior. Essentially the same as a Brodie deal, but we needed Tanev too. Should have traded Gio and re-signed Brodie. Coleman is a team first guy, but he is again a completer piece. Good value if you already have the stars. Nothing worng with Backlund either. I also do not really like our version of asset management. Keeping Backlund until he retires is what you do for your top players that excel until they are late 30's. Didn't do it with Iggy or Newy or Big Al. Gio was $6M+ when we let him go and he's playing for peanuts. We don't have any franchise players really. Lindholm is probably the closest we have. Young enough to re-sign. Hanifin, though young, isn't improving or really driving the D. Worth what he is paid, but not interested in $7M. Yes, hockey trades is what I'm thinking. We rarely turnover the roster. Players are available and we seem stuck on what we have. The comments from Sutter suggest that he hates any change. Fit the culture or force them to fit. Is the culture so great that one size fits all? Toffoli and Lucic and Lewis love it because it fits the way they want to play.

The bolded is so true. We get burned every time. Sign Iggy, trade him near the end to the only team he wants to go to. Might as well have signed him to a one year deal as trade for nothing at that point. Gio. Signed and kept for a couple years too long because he was a team guy and a good player. We lose him for nothing. Worse than that. The guy we protect we have to trade. And they turn around and get a top pick for him. All that is beside the point. It happened. Just shows how the team operates. I would suggest that we do need to move Coleman, but that's a bad contract to try to move. As they used to say in the USA, 4 more years. Yikes. He's a completer piece not the guy you build with. Backlund, Tanev and Hanifin are symptomatic of this team. You think some days they are playing great, then you realize that the other days they just don't help. If they have value, we should move on. Just the change alone would help us get away from that identity we sort have. Whatever it is. If we do that, we have to switch coaches. Too hard to remake the team anything but a shell of this or last year.

I agree with the above. I think you have to look at all for improvements. Can the coach adjust. Can the players improve. Can the GM (and owners) agree on the right steps to move forward. I only suggest firing the coach because that is the obvious thing. The team didn't achieve results. Questionable whether we have the right coach for this group or the wrong group for the right coach. Last year was an outlier, so I don't see past results as the bar.

Them's the old series lights. They make sets that a burned out one only loses that light. What I found about Markstrom's losses was that he would let one in at the worst time. We are down one or two early and struggle to score. On the other hand, Vladar saved enough to allow us to get the lead. Sure, he let one in later, then another, but sometimes just enough saves to get the win. In Vladar early losses he was bad. No doubt to that. The bottom line is that neither goalie was good this season. One had a long string of winning or getting the game to OT. One had their longest stretch of points at 4 games and longest set of wins at 3.

GM can suggest that there is a free spot on 2RW. Hope he doesn't watch too many games in his spare time.

BT might take the hit for this, but do you think that the owners are sitting back thinking Sutter has done a great job? They have to be wondering the same things as the fans. 3 new players having average to below average seasons. How is the GM responsible for that?