travel_dude

The Breadman is back.

If all you ever did was play against McD in the O-zone, we would score a ton of goals. He is pretty much a sieve.

Top line a bit invisible tonight. Guess that means that Dube will get the hook next game. All other lines seem to be doing things.

I keep trashing Lucic, untill he has more goals than McD. Skate Lucic Skate. Then Stop Lucic Stop.

Well, he had the angle on the pass to the open guy, but Tanev deflected if against the grain. Nobody makes that save.

The 5 on 3 was only 5 seconds, but we ruined a PP with the Kadri call. The Zaddy takes the customary being tough call. It for sure was a penalty. Kadri playing like it's the playoffs and whistles put away.

A ton of STL players on IR, check. Bhues score first, check. Deflected off Tanev. Just the 2nd shot. Penalties are going to be bad tonight. Refs calling everything.

Like I was sayind, many fans aren't understanding of the term. Many times you hear the word used, the player comes out and says they were addicted to X. Yes, there is mental health as well, but to the casueal fan, it sounds diferent. FS should have just let it lie.

Look at mine and Cross's comments in Lineup 22/23. Cross points out a vald point.

Probably the wrong word to use was "treatment". All it does is confude the issue. Leads many fans to conclude it was drugs. I'm not saying I think that, but that is what a lot would read into it.

Interesting stats for Markstrom. In his first 29 starts last season he was 15-9-5 with a 2.13 and 926, with 6 shutouts. This year (in 27 starts), he is 13-10-4 with 2.80 .894 and zero shutouts. Even with the poor stats, we are only 3 points back with 2 less games played.

This is a little disturbing. Treatment is person, but it seems to be different than family issues mentioned. Maybe we read that into the reason for him missing time.... Frank Seravalli confirms moments ago on #Flames Talk that Oliver Kylington is still receiving treatment from the players assistance program and that there still no answer on his return. Regarding his fitness, Frank confirms that Oliver has been skating. Hoping the best for Oliver

Really, so that meant he was splitting time with Dube? Would like him to be tried for some reps as RW.

All those girls that made the NHL, eh? LOL Funny way of saying it.

By the looks of it Markstrom getting the start against STL. 3 goals against in 11 shots last game. Vladar had 1 in 14 shots. Markstrom has looked good in most of his last 5 starts, except against CHI. Tempting fate I guess. Binnington has been up and down, hope we get the down version.

Kinda obvious that with the same SH% as last year he would be on pace for 30 goals. His shot volume is down but not by a lot. Point blank shots are hitting the goalie's chest. He seems to be delaying, sometimes going for the curl and drag shot. It's not working for him. The low assist numbers come from a low scoring line. Does Pelletier get you more goals from that line? Not sure they score that much either way. I would tend to use a passer with Kadri. Lucic isn't going to score 30 up there.

Lines from practice. You will notice that Duehr in and Pelletier not. Cuz that's what you do when you call up a guy over a point per game and a guy at 1/2 a point per game. It's 4th line duty, so it makes some sense. Then again, Lucic on the 4th line makes as much sense. Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli Lucic-Kadri-Huberdeau Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman Lewis-Ruzicka-Duehr Pelletier-Zohrona

Lucic sits out then comes back to the 2nd line. If there was issues with his play, sit him for a game and let him get hungry. He deserves the 4th line as much as Lucic deserves the 2nd line. In other words, it was 2 bad choices. Ruzicka hasn't been on fire since being dropped down. I'm not sur what the message is when you say to the hot hand, we need you to go to the 4th line. We need to play Lucic since he was crap before sitting out 3 games (or whatever it was). And maybe Sutter is seeing more than I am. I have seen a few poor shifts, but the skills to do something are there. He gets boxed in and can't do much with the puck at times, but he rarely makes a stupid decision with the puck. Doesn't cross ice pass just inside the O zone. Gets it deep if nothing is there. The fact that Lewis is getting the chances shows that the passes are clean. TBH, I hope Ruzie uses this as motivation to play his guts out for a shift. Leave it on the ice. Drive the net instead of passing to the vet.

I don't make excuses for the team or the coaches. The coach's media event says they needed to score 4 to win, hard to do that. Don't have two 40 goal scorers this year. Have to score greasy goals. Goalies need to stop the puck. That's the part that gets old. Not that he is being entirely honest about it. He probably has to review game tape to see why things happened.

No doubt that Phillips would need to adjust to the size of the NHL. In his two brief games, he played the way Dube does on the boards. He's not going to win battles that way in the NHL. Even when he went to the net, he was getting buried before he could get a touch. Just one player though. I get that Sutter looks at every game as must win. The devil you know with the current roster. Lucic only was scratched after more than a month of poor play. And even with lax play by him in several games, he's still top 6. I won't go on about that, since the line still meshes from time to time. If Pelletier and Duehr get a chance, it will be at the expense of young players. Most like Ruzicka (somewhat justified) or Zohorna (up and down). Pelletier will get a game in the top 9 and Duehr on the 4th line. Unless an immediate spark is seen, he will get 8 minutes. I suspect there is still some bias to how a player was in camp. Zohorna is coming up on 9 games and will hit the max for recall without needing waivers to sent down. I think Sutter like his size and may hang onto him longer term. He has a few skills. Not sure long term. Sutter is using him at C.

You are making general statements about the club and young players and culture. The entire team wasn't good to start or so it seemed. They are one of the better teams for 1st period production. But the execution wasn't there. Like they were out of sorts. Sutter is good for some things. I don't fault him when players make mistakes. The system works if everything works. No room for error. What I am seeing is a lack of change to things that are not working. The answer isn't always just rolling 4 lines and a playbook that doesn't change at all with different teams. The PP looks the same most games, so I question what they are expecting to do. All I was really pointing to is that it's not one group of players. Dube and Mange got good chances. Zohorna got a few looks. Kadri and Hubey and Ras made mistakes. Markstrom made a few errors on the initial saves. The D lost men. The F tried risky plays.

Generalizations about the younger generations are just that. General. I am not of that young era, so I don't know what they feel or how they prepare. It's BS that the young guys weren't ready; the entire team was too casual to start the game. First shift by Hubey and they were crap. Hubey, Lindholm and Kadri were one for every goal against. At least one of them was. You could assign blame to each of them for lost coverage. Markstrom was weak on all three goals, but they decided to play for a bit. Hung out to dry but he didn't help. It makes no matter to me how many minutes a guy plays. But to blame them when they sat most of the 2nd and 3rd periods is dumb. Digest what the sequence was that lead to the goal. Coach them. I realize that he didn't specifically mention players, but the 1-6 reference implies it's not vets 28 and up. I saw poor play up and down the lineup.

Every team loses to everyone. We just seem to be really good at failing at the wrong times. Were the vets the only ones not at fault? Two of their goals scored on the PP. All goals against scored with vets on the ice. 4th line benched for basically half the game. Sutter is praising players one game then running them down the next. Bets on who gets benched? Won't be Lucic or Lewis.

I will say, nobody really impressed me. Zohorna had some good shifts. The two best players scored on the PP, but only because it hppened early. When they had time to set up, it was lousy. Top line was a no show. Lucic was mostly an anchor. Backlund line probably was best line, but few chances that good. 2 more (maybe more) posts today.