travel_dude

Interesting to see the Wranglers also call up Nikolaev from KC.

One can hope. I will say though that Kerins has been up and down, so it's not exactly a shock to see him move up. I think we are looking at the lineup and discoving some things. Things that can't be resolved with simply moving players around the lineup. Finishing is a big issue right now. 4th line not being trusted in a close game. The only played 3 minutes in the first two periods. You can't continue that where you play B2B games.

Tend to agree. You waive Rooney if you have intent of calling up another F. We had a free roster spot and enough cap to just call up Phillips. I am interested to see what Sutter does. Top 9 is fine. Bottom line has issues.

Lewis stays in if he is healthy and they need a RW/C. If you play Phillips on the 4th line, Lewis is essential. Sure, you can demote Dube to play C, but Sutter thinks the line is playing well now. In a Sutter world, you are almost certain to start on the 4th line as a callup. Maybe that work, but maybe it's a big mistake. Lucic is more of a problem than Ritchie. About Rosie.... Two things happened. One, Sutter realized that the only open spots was on the wing. Rosie embraced the chance and adapted to the position. He's playing with two guys that know how to defend and are good on transition. He's good at stripping the puck. Really heavy shot.

The Oiler blogosphere has other crazy ideas. Erik Karlsson. The Oilers have $10M available cap next season. 10F, 5D and 1G signed with that little remaining. This year they are close to max LTIR used. The Karlsson rumor was Barrie and Pooly for Karlsson with money retained. Slightly sideways trade for offence, losing a top 9 F as well. And they have zero depth beyond the 2nd line. They need a shutdown D and scoring forwards, but go ahead...

Forgot about Zary to be honest. But positional need is a LW if you are sitting Lucic. Not a big fan of using a RHS on LW like they have done with Lewis and Ritchie in the past. I agree that you need to show the guys performing that they deserve a call up. Zohorna is 4th in scoring, but a lot of that comes from top minutes with the top players.

I heard about the absence, but I think it would be a mistake at this point. Sure that open up the possible line of Lucic-Zohorna-Phillips, but really that isn't the answer. Lewis may not be the same player he was last season, but he's still more than Little Z. I also think it would negate bringing up Phillips. Little Z will get picked over Phillips unless Sutter has a change of heart. If anything, it would make more sense to sit Lucic and have Pelletier-Lewis-Phillips. It changes the game strategy, but that line wouldn't bleed so much offence.

Agreed on the impact to Lucic. You could see how pissed he was last night after the game, didn't even give the goalie any love. While it makes sense to play Phillips with Rozie, I wonder about that line. They are the most stable line we have. Very little gets away from them and they drive the play in the transition and O-zone. Coleman finally scoring more frequently. If you move him down, the player that has to come out is Lucic. The same could be said about Kadri's line about finally figuring it out. But, I would suggest that Phillips could fit there and provide that RHS. Small wingers though. Dube could easily take C on the 4th line, but not thinking that is really a fair shake. I wonder about the locker room impact though. Lucic playing 5 minutes is gonna impact what he says and what value his voice is. If you are blowing every play on the ice, how is your input going to have any impact? He not willing to fight now and his big hits are showing up less and less.

Cole Jordan out for the season after surgery.

This is as much about reward as opportunity. Reward for being AHL player of the month. Reward for effort. It's also BT saying to Sutter, this is what I am giving you. Use him, don't use him, this is what you have to pick from. I think he is NHL ready, let's see what you think.

At this point I am not going to read much into the recall. Ritchie was a little banged up. Having a extra body on a short 3 game road trip makes sense. But, the road trip is against teams that are not big hitting teams. We don't need to put Gaudreau into the 2nd row. We need players that can skate with pace. Let's see what the practice lines look like first. Could be a perfect game to get him into the NHL against CBJ. Could use some PP skill. Backlund didn't see a second of PP time last night. They also didn't look good on the 2nd unit.

It's an interesting development. Have one roster spot available, but doesn't make sense to carry 2 extras. Does this mean we are waiving one of the 4th line guys like Rooney? He's not able to stick in the lineup and doesn't seem to fit with the other players. But I wouldn't say he is the worst of the bunch.

Holy Hanna. Seeing the minutes played by the 4th line, it would appear to be that's where he is envisioned. I stand corrected. But, it's also possible that he plays in Dube's spot. Dube is capable of playing at C (so is Phillips I guess). I don't know that you mess with the 2nd line, since they seem to have chemistry. But Phillips on the 4th line is also weird.

Pretty hard to win a game with that goalie in nets. Oilers had 5 PP's. Ingram is not a NHL goalie.

Ryan Pike The #Flames leaders in 5v5 points, in a tie, are Mikael Backlund and Adam Ruzicka, both with 12.

I have two peoblems with their usage. One is that they start after we have shifted momentum and they lose it once they lose the O zone. The second is that they get benched for poor play, then double their minutes in the 3rd period in a close game. There are two types of 4th lines. One is like ours. The other is an energy line that [ressures, skates and gets chances. We lose some grit by going to the 2nd type of line. But we also don't lose foot races and D-zone play as much.

Ahh, that's right. Cannon Land

Nice to get that conidence. Next up the Big Smoke

Andersson Toffoli !!!!!

Wow, pulled the goalie with 3 left and down by 1

Ruzie stripped the puck setting that one up

So much for the lead. Play to not lose and have no offense. Okay so Ras scores as I type this

So, we keep rolling 4 lines this period and take a penalty. Nice coaching.