travel_dude

Whoopsie, I thought Ritchie was also injured. So, we have two young players that will fight to replace Lewis or Ritchie. My immediate choice would be: Ruzicka-Lewis-Duehr What we will get is: Lucic-Lewis-Ritchie or Lucic-Ruzicka-Lewis or Lucic-Lewis-Duehr Guaranted to not fix any problem.....

Most times there is a coaching change, you get the new coach bump. If you call shot volume scoring chances, then you are hoping for a ECHL level goalie. Slow methodical movement up the ice to protect the possession. Dump and chase to regain possession, but only send in one guy. Shoot from any angle and call it a scoring chance if you like. It doesn't even need to be a new coach to change the outcome. Somethings are not working at all and haven't been for some time. Stay with it or change? I see more of the same. The 4th line should sit out after some of the shifts they have played. Two tie games with the Rangers with less than a minute left. Oh no, we have to use them.

I started here because, to me, it points to the coach. But there is one thing that bothers me besides that. It's going down 2 goals and just trying to grind back into the game. Be patient. So, we get into a situation where we are slowly whittling our way back in and eventually scoring. Great if you have perfect goaltending the rest of the game. But we get a small lead or tie it up and then coast. Tighten up something that is never tight. You will be glad to know that Duehr was recalled, but I can almost guarantee that it will be Ruzicka coming out, as Ritchie was put on IR. Address the issue by not fixing the problem. The PP is worse than it was before. Instead of bumping down Kadri, they bump down Lindholm and Toffoli. Kadri has 2 PP points since January 1st and has been on the top line the entire season. The new look PP is much worse than what it replaced.

Couple of things. 1) The coach is responsible for the goalie decision. Vladar has a winning record and is relegated to warming the bench. Markstrom has one good game out of 4 and gets the nod. Buffalo was a game against a very bad goalie. NY was a solid game for most of the game. Beyond that, the coach is riding the losing goalie. 2) This coach decides on playing man on man coverage. It worked last year because we had pairs that worked well together. Sutter decided he didn't like something in the last game and put Ras with Gilbert. Zaddy-Weegar is not a great pair. 3) The coach is responsible for the PP. Muller runs it, but it hasn't worked in weeks. 4) You see shifts that look better than others, but they are few and far between. That is skill overcoming the handicap they have. The best I have seen from the 2nd line is the 3 way passing a couple of games ago. Yet we see the exact same top 9 lines run every game. To be honest, I can't moments of brilliance are because they stop playing the system or because every once in a blue moon they figure out how to play it and get scoring chances. One goalie sucks and the other doesn't instill any confidence in the coach, even when he went on a ridiculous run. League average goaltending and we aren't just picking the puck out of the net and trying to get or hold a lead. Sometimes you run into a hot goalie, but getting chances only to see the first one the other team gets go in is deflating. We rallied to make it 2-1, then oops it's 2-1. We rally to make it 3-3 only to see it turn into 4-3. I'm not saying a new coach fixes the mess, but this is the type of season that gets coaches fired. There are enough things gone wrong that he had a hand in. The type of game we are playing isn't winning games. The lines may not be any better if they switched, but we are stuck on them because they sometimes work for part of a game? Being stubborn and losing are not a good combo.

Wolf is in year 2 of being one of the top goalies in the AHL. How does keeping him in the AHL when the Flames are losing regularly help him? He has no reference point to his game. No idea what he needs to be in the NHL. Playing him now in the NHL for a couple of games neither hurts the Flames nor the AHL team. At worst, he knowss what level he needs to be at. At best, we win a few games and know how close he is to a backup spot.

Reminds me of the starfish that Russell used to be famous for.

Yeah, that was the WTF was that, why was this guy behind me fully open look. I think he was unsure about Markstom's ability to stop the shot. He was committed to the shooter but then tried to stop the pass. Not effective either way.

The whole sequence was bizarre. Hubey and Kadri fighting for the puck with Z close by. It squirts loose and Hubey turns to go on offense and Kadri follows the puck but doesn't get in the zone. Z goes to cover the puck carrier because Pelletier is being left behind. 2 F out in space, the Flames bunched up on obne side of the ice and Z makes a bad read. He went down like it was a 2 on 1 rush and he was blocking the pass, but wasn't watching the open player at all. I don't know I have seen one side of the ice so vacant. Not a single Flame in the zone on that side. Two F were still at the blueline when the puck went in, but it was a 2 on 3.

The parallel I would draw is that we fired the coach back then. Personally, I have no issue with the trade and signing. Older by about a year on one part of the trade. Kadri doesn't fit where he is, but that's on the coach to find the right spot. The cupboards aren't really bare, just we have prospects most are not grade A, but that is drafting. No idea where they stand since we don't use them any time. Still have first rounders, but need a slide rule to figure out the conditions. Where we are. A team stuck in the past. We hurt other team more than we beat them on the scoreboard. Skill is frowned upon, since it means you don't play 200 feet. Yet our 200 foot game is really bad. Winning depends on scoring first and often enough that we can shut it down and weather the storm. A 2-0 lead is a recipe for disaster. Go into a shell that is expose. Shut down offense and depend on shaky goalies.

The best Lucic has played was on the 2nd line, but I would just say that he was only effective when they gained zone time. He was barely NHL level then. He made passes to players that created. The team seems unwilling to move on from the cup ringers. We don't need Lucic in the room telling the younger guys how to win when he's creating scoring chances against. On a team more likely to miss the p[layoffs, he isn't useful. Gilbert and Ritchie are more likely to fight. And Ritchie keeps getting injured in his fights. All Lewis is doing is giving Sutter an excuse to scratch Ruzicka. I haven't been happy with the effort leading up to the scratches, but Ruzicka is also trying to drag around less skilled players. Maybe the wrong place to say this but Sutter has killed this team. He can't seem to find places for players where they will be consistent. But the lines are always consistent. There is no magic from the 2nd line. Pelletier rarely gets chances because Kadri always wants to shoot. Huberdeau is always trying to create something but there is little option for a pass. The top line looks good, but looks a little out of sync. The Backlund line creates but not much finish.

This team is closer to the 2020/21 team than the 2021/22 team. More scoring and more goals against, but an almost identical home record. But back then we had skill being shown. We had a coach that tried everything to get wins. Even putting Backlund on the wing.

We can let this thread die if you want to post in the original thread: I wasn't able to find this, but I thought there may have been a similar thread. The 2022/23 version is even more perplexing than the one from 2020/21. At least they had a COVID excuse for not having one.

I lost track of this thread with all the GDT's in the same area. This one was started in 2021, just before we saw a coaching change. I don't know that the change made any difference to the identity, but we had a good season when everyone was having career seasons.

Saros says hi. An athletic goalie can cover the rebounds that a bigger goalie just uses their size to try to do. The Flames give up way fewer shots than most teams and we still get scored on a ton. Markstrom is proving to not be the solution. Vladar is being sacrificed to try to get Marky going. Great, he played a good game against NY where he made most of the saves. In the next game he was bland. Blame or don't blame the goalie, he was not good on several goals. We should come up with a new stat called ECGA - Expect Crappy Goal Against. Or LFSGA - Likely First Shot Goal Against. Just kidding. Back to Wolf. If we want to have any hope of making the playoffs, we have to fix Markstrom's head, get the backup more and more starts, and look at the next wave. Nothing tried has worked on Markstrom and Sutter's insistence that he is the starter and he should play 50+ is just insane. Playing Wolf doesn't solve the problem, but it gives us time. And maybe the team starts to learn how to play in front of a goalie for a change. It's so hard to tell how much of the problem is Markstrom and how much is the team. Any breakdown is in. Shots from the circles are in. Pucks sitting on the goal line are in. Vladar's results recently have not been as good, but those are different goals.

Okay, not 2 on 1 related, but I think it's the structure. Man on man. Pull a switch and we lose it. Happened to Hanifin and Ras, but it's not isolated. But about 2 on 1, we get burned on it but can't execute one ourselves. I can understand why they don't give the shooter to the goalie. We can't even trust the goalie to make the obvious save.

This isn't a topic about blowing it up or making trades. Just trying to figure out what this team is trying to be. Whatever it is, it's not readily apparent. Things we do well: - hurt other teams physically - make for an exciting game, for the other team - lose to non-elite goalies and backups - lose to teams that played the night before We aren't a get one goal, shut the other team down. We can;t do that with a 2 goal lead. We aren't fast break, catch teams standing still. We don;t have a good PP or a really good PK. The goalies can win if we score 3 or more. We don;t put the foot down and score 3 in a row often. Does the coach set the identity and we aren't that team? I don't know, since we don;t really show any kind of identity except maybe fragile and joyless.

You just know that we will lose at least one in the B2B, then beat COL and BOS. And that leaves BT in that mushy middle where he doesn't know what to do. Can't trade the coach. Can't help the players have more confidence in goaltending. Can't turn it into a fun dressing room, since that would get away from all business from the coach. Can't give away futures for a player that probably doesn't play Sutter hockey.

Well, it would seem that we have the wrong coach, no doubt. Since we do have a lot of players with multi year deals, we will be hard pressed to sell any of them. I suggested trading for Meier, because we need something to base this team off. I would be fine is giving up players for him just to have a new baseline for next season. Nothing about this team under Sutter suggest we can win this year, so let him sinl with it. We replace him and maybe we have new players step up. I form this opinion since I don't see anything positive about the way our line are. Some good players, just can't put together 2 games where they are that guy.

Oh, I know. It just looked more feeble than he normally is on the goal line. I don't know why we play to tie when we can't even prevent a goal after dominating for most of the period. It's just so hard to watch this team. The team gives up after the Flyers go up on a easy goal. Then they start playing again after they get one. Then they tie and fall back into some kind of broken shell.

Maybe use Lindholm on the draw?

5 hole, post and out

Well, it was not the typical way that Markstrom covers the lower half of the net when he is down. Foot extended only half way across. But the team fell apart prior. Kadri is good for a useless penalty when we needed to mount a comeback.

There we are

Toying with me aren't you Flames.

Toy with my emotions again are you Flames? Markstrom has to be perfect the rest of the game to have a chance.