travel_dude

Funny, Sutter blames the young guys preparation for the game. He did say the goaltending for us sucked, which is why he made the change. The two guys on the ice in the loss were the vets.

Too many Deep Dish Pizzas before the game. Nobody was really good. Defensively, the F sucked. No awareness. Wasted outstanding game by Vladar.

Completely useless on the 3 on 3. We looked 10x better with 2D out there.

If we get to OT, I expect CHI to take a penalty. MORE COWBELL

Wasted PP. 2 minutes of passing. Lindholm only chance, crossbar. This is another one goal game.

That save by Vladar. As much as Marky has played well, he's not good on that type of play. Ref called it pushed in after the huge save bt Vladar. Flames need to get their Satoshi Nakamoto together. Slack play in their zone. Stupid play when pinching.

Marky left in one game too many. Not that he was bad on any goal, but you have Vladar who has a really good record recently. Down 3-1 early. Risky play by the line coughs it up with no backup. Hibey gets a Cowbell.

I get why Sutter didn't want to get Pelletier into this game. No practice after travel and early start. STL not the ideal game to give Pelletier his first NHL game. What am I thinking, there is no chance Pelletier gets a game in with this roadie. All playoff or bubble teams.

Ugly start for the Flames. Asleep at the wheel on the first goal. Really bad change of 5 players on the 2nd goal. They had the momentum until the bad change. This should be a blowout. Not what it's looking like so far.

Kurashev-Domi-Reichel T. Johnson-Toews-Raddysh Athanasiou-Dickinson-Seney R. Johnson-Lafferty-Blackwell McCabe-S. Jones Phillips-Murphy J. Johnson-Mitchell Stalock Kane (lower body), Katchouk, & Phillips are scratched Not sure who replaces Phillips on D. Probably C. Jones if available

Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli Lucic-Kadri-Huberdeau Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman Ruzicka-Zohorna-Lewis Hanifin-Andersson Weegar-Tanev Zadorov-Stone Markstrom makes 4th straight start

Zero change to lineup tonight. As if that was ever in question. Call up players to pay them to eat popcorn.

I was wondering where Pelts best fits in this lineup. I think you could easil play Dube with Hibey and Kadri. IIRC, Dube and Kadri had great chemistry, just Mange messing it up a bit. We tried Mange with Toffoli and Lindholm, but I don't remember it clicking. So, here's my crazy suggestion for using Pelletier: 1) Pelletier-Lindholm-Toffoli 2) Huberdeau-Kadri-Dube 3) Mange-Backs-Coleman 4) Lucic-Ruzicka-Duehr 1) Pelletier has always been more of a setup guy, and he has two targets. He won't play much if at all on the PP, so his minutes won't be extreme. 2) Dube can take draws when Kadri has a rough night. I think this could be a dominant line. 3) Stable line, maybe doesn't score as much as last year but you can trust them not to be scored on. 4) Duehr and Ruzicka add some speed, Lucic can get them the puck. Duehr isn't having a great year, but he is rugged and can skate. IIRC, he has better hands than Lewis.

^^^ You have to think that BT isn't interested in Lucic being part of that group. Seems like a Sutter=BT conflict. Bring up Phillips, Sutter give him 16 minutes in 2 games. Then replaces him with Lucic and Zohorna. I tried your thing and it didn't work, now see what I can do with big guys. We lose a 4th liner and decide to bring up another 4th liner and a top 9 player. Meaning we have Lucic, Zohorna, Lewis, Duehr, and Ruzicka to choose from. For the top 9, we have Ruzicka and Pelletier that really belong there. Back to BT. No point in only looking at trades if you don't know what you have. Sutter really decides the future of the prospects, basing it on camp. An injury is the perfect time to try some new things. We shall see how far that goes.

THere isn't any news of dinged up players, other than Toffoli limping off the ice after a shift. He returned next shift though. There's a chance that Lucic goes to the 4th line. Sutter doesn't like depth players scoring, so he will get sent down. JK. Really Sutter seems to like to make changes when he sees something he doesn't like. Especially after a win. It's also possible the move of Lucic was to get him going. Now he can go back to the 4th and get them going. Sutter's brain.

I get frustrated with him some games. He gets a lot of goals when he gets open. But he's the one taking the puck in or fighting for the puck on the boards. So, he gets a target on his back. The little buttonhook he's doing when he gains the zone with the puck isn't working. I do agree he's gripping the stick too hard. He's at his best when the line is on the rush and passing or when they cycle it. And yes, the Backs line is where he's played his best. And where he's starting to come around. He's doing the right things out there, just not finishing.

I think that Pelts will get to play, more so than Phillips did. Duehr might replace Ritchie (Zohorna) on the 4th line. That assumes that Lucic doesn't get sent there. I think Lucic on LW messes up Hubey's passing and zone entries. If I had to guess.... Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli Huberdeau-Kadri-Pelletier Mange-Backlund-Coleman Lucic-Ruzicka-Lewis (Duehr) I may be missing news on an injury (Toffoli was briefly hurt last night). Or Ruzicka is in the dog house.

I may have proposed him in trades, but that's because he's one of the few that has value. Low contract cost, young player. If he was a bit bigger (not his heart), he would be top 3 on any team. My biggest beef is him getting crushed on the boards. He's adjusted that this year to everyone's happiness. I don't know that Sutter loved him, but he's finally noticed that Dube is getting better every game. Some of that is he fights for his space and time. One of the few that never looks gassed. High compete level. As far as the plum assignments, that's not an insult. He's earned it and Mange hasn't. Mange does other things well that don't show up on the scoresheet, though. He's not scoring because his positioning is a bit off, makes stupid moves when he gains the zone. I would be fine with the top 9 lines, if we didn't have Lucic anywhere near. If that means a trade or a prospect coming up, so be it. We can't maintain with Lucic out there. Lucky to have Varly in nets last night, but we aren't beating any top 10 team that way.

We are two players shy of 4 good lines. Lucic doesn't add anything to the 2nd line, but allows Kadri space. Lewis has hands of stone, but is a good role model.

I'm not really complaining. I like Monahan,but he's a shadow of his former self. He would have started on the 3rd line at best and really didn't fit players other than JG and Lindholm.

He was the player I wanted to sign, but gave up on him. Unfortunate that we needed to trade Monahan, but once Johnny left he had no guy to play with.

Better Cowbell is 5x Cowbell

Only good Cowbell is 4x Cowbell.