travel_dude

I wouldn't look at this game as a statement game. It had a lot of similar things to games we have won and lost. Sutter described a couple of goals as battle losses, without going to the lack of saves. Said some guys aren't hard enough in the tough areas. Some of these guys continue to be that way, playing too soft. Whether the chances were HD or just volume shots, there is no reason why we weren't making it difficult. 40 should be enough to win a game. Pretty hard to complain about depth when you are missing two guys that make up the depth. That would be #4 and #7 in the depth chart, leaving 8-10 as the new 6-7, if ya know what I mean. Perhaps a poor decision to waive Valimaki instead of Mackey, as neither guy really stepped up in camp. The forwards in the D-zone are not helping enough, mostly the wings. Lucic is about as useful as Gaudreau, but without the breakout speed or slick stick checking. Wingers not taking their man and giving chance to players walking in on net. Man on man is fine, if you execute it and don't get crossed up or let your guy go. Lastly, the goaltending from Marky has been hit and miss. Good saves plus a lot of poor goals. The when is killing us more than the number of them. Two times where we make a push and less than a minute later they score a fluffy one. Vladar hasn't been great, but he hasn't been the problem so much. Some bad rebounds but mostly he's solid. Would like to see more starts to get whether he has regressed or just circumstance.

At least willing to pit a decent shot on net. What is up with the rest of them not getting shots away. Ras passes up shots most of the time. Weegar is willing to put a slapper on nets. Missing Stone, if you can believe that. And missing the skating ability of Kyl.

The problem I have with Lewis on that line is a pass to him results in nothing. Backlund is a skilled passer as is Hubey, so what's the point if you have no finisher. Considering the high number of HD chances against, the defensive side isn't working either.

Some of the shots low quality, but really volume should also get you more than one.

Don't get me wrong, Marky makes a bunch of saves that could easily be goals. But when you get to get one called back and are 0-0 and 30 seconds later it's 0-1... And when you get within a goal and immeduiately, like 10 seconds later, it's 1-3... The number of HD chances against are bad, but 2 goals not scored on HD chances. At best MD or LD.

Flames should be 1-1 at worst This goalie stiff is getting on my nerves. 19 shots 3 goals.

Two goals that weren't exactly perfect goals. Very stopable

I'm sure Vas will not let in another goal. Shut out from this point. Marky can't stop flies

Nice one

SHUT OUT Shutout Shut out SHUT Out

When Lucic is the only one that beats Vas, then you are in trouble.

Can't score any goals now. Shutout by Vas. We are outplaying them by a wide margin and not hitting anything but the goalie. Outplaying them in their zone. Zone entries suck. A PP that dumps the puck in and easy out goalie to D. Yikes.

Kadri needs to better watch the zone entry. Lucic is going to be slow entering the zone, so slow down. Lewis with the giveaway that created the goal against, but he didn't really have any control. No hard on the puck.

Score a goal, called back. Have the puck on the stick in the D-zone, lose it, in our net.

Enjoy your stream.... Doesn't seem to be national coverage.

Posting Open

Starting Goalies... Flames Markstrom (likely) Bolts Vasilevskiy (confirmed)

Bolts Lines: LW C RW BRANDON HAGEL BRAYDEN POINT NIKITA KUCHEROV STEVEN STAMKOS NICK PAUL ALEX KILLORN ROSS COLTON VLADISLAV NAMESTNIKOV COREY PERRY PATRICK MAROON PIERRE-ÉDOUARD BELLEMARE COLE KOEPKE DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS VICTOR HEDMAN IAN COLE MIKHAIL SERGACHEV NICKLAUS PERBIX HAYDN FLEURY PHILIPPE MYERS

Flames Lines and pairings: LW C RW ADAM RUZICKA ELIAS LINDHOLM TYLER TOFFOLI MILAN LUCIC NAZEM KADRI ANDREW MANGIAPANE JONATHAN HUBERDEAU MIKAEL BACKLUND TREVOR LEWIS BLAKE COLEMAN DILLON DUBE BRETT RITCHIE DEFENSIVE PAIRINGS NOAH HANIFIN RASMUS ANDERSSON MACKENZIE WEEGAR CHRIS TANEV DENNIS GILBERT NIKITA ZADOROV

Lines to follow....

Depth of prospects is a nice thing to worry about. It's both a gift and a pain. The pain part is trying to properly develop them and actually have the space for them when they start to hit the stride. Key is having the right coach and GM not to jump too soon or too late. The good thing is some of the bottom feeders are starting to be competitive again. The easy wins or upsets are no longer the norm. Would love to see TO take a step back and miss the playoffs. TSN and SN might actually talk about something else than Leafs.

I believe Byron was about 1-2 breakaways per game here and scored on none. Different in MTL. The waiving was stupid, all because of Ortio. If Phillips was Byron incarnate, then that would be something. Then we could trade him to MTL. LOL

And there seems to be a disconnect between Sutter and BT. The scouts and GM seem to like the kid, but Sutter only looks at NHL and what you look like there. Not sure how a kid that never plays a game gets a chance to show the coach he can play. Not unless BT calls him up in an injury situation and gives the coach little choice. You know that isn't happening. Call him up and get him into practices. Maybe he get a game in a B2B situation. The big issue right now is cap. Both Stone and Kyl are using available money and we have little extra to have barely 7D and 13F. We are short $100k to call up Phillips. Unless an injury presents itself on F and we actually get cap back, we can't carry an extra F. Not besides Rooney.

I don't think the waivers situation enters into him getting a callup. He would have something like 10 NHL games or 30 days and be able to go back down without it. Back to the question though. It would be good to see him get a legit shot. I just don't see the place that he could play. He may be good defensively, so the chance to play with Backlund might work. That pushes Lewis down though. Or RW with Kadri. Maybe that works. Sutter seems to want a grinder in every player he has. Ruzie? Scoring is nice, but wants him to use his size more. Dube? Play the 4th line since he wasn't being hard enough on others? I would like to see more of a hybrid than what we actually have, to a certain extent. Less relying on slow grinders and add some speed to the lines. Attack more on the rush and not have to grind out 3-2 victories all the time. It takes a big toll. So, what I am saying is that there is nothing wrong with this team calling up and playing Phillips in a scoring role. Sutter seems to hate the idea of scoring and wants checking first. He believes that we have nobody on the roster or in the AHL that can be a game changer by scoring all the time.

I don't think anyone cares if the coach calls them out; players know they are not performing. The off the cuff comment is the one that riled a few. But anyway... Hubey reminds me of JG when Sutter first arrived. Was used to playing a more wide open game. The rest of the team is used to it. Finding his way is an accurate statement. Finding a balance of his old game and how that works or doesn't work here. How he can work with his line to improve outcome. I'm not worried about him, other than he needs to produce positive results. Those have been lacking. Sutter doesn't care if he gets 75 assists, just that the line is above zero in goals for vs goals against.