travel_dude

3 RHS to start the OT

Dube needs to stop doing those fishy little passes in traffic. Set up 2 breakaways.

Big Z does it for us.

Finally, something to cheer about. It was almost a bad play passing too much.

Was it Kadri or Mangiapne? It looked like they were switching man coverage and neither knew who was covering.

Psych

Is Stone back on the game?

He's a big meanie. All I can say to the Flames F on in close chances.... Hit. The. Net. Dube wide open, it can't go over the net. May have been defected, but it didn't look like it.

Thanks HB. Cheers.

Ah, I see what you did there. Yes, Mange has looked good at times, but not to his usual level. I wonder if Dube playing with him takes something away.

Well, that may need to wait. We are back to Hubey-Lindy-Toffee tonight. The results were better rom the first 6 games, but the problems were there. It's (to me), a bit of mixup from the D to the F. It's mine, you take it. Have not seen the best out of Hanifin and Ras. And we were missing Tanev from the last game. Mackey did nothing to show he is a regular. If we ever get back Kylington, it will be an interesting problem. While his overall play sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, he's a plus. Need another guy to make good of escapes.

Both those guys played on killer teams, but yes I would agree both are great. There are a lot of #1's that are offensive and play okay defense. Bergeron is closer to Lindy.

Well, he was 80 ish points last year and had two wingers over 100. What he isn't is a one way forward like a lot of team's #1. It took some time for Lindy to replace Monahan as the #1 on this team. Took some time to develop that 1st line that really scored a lot. While I understand he isn't the prototypical #1, he is likely the best on the team. There are very few Matthews/McD/MacKinnon's out there. And really only MacKinnon plays well without the puck.

Toffoli is or wan't the problem with the Huberdeau line. Lindholm hasn't adjusted or Hibey hasn't. Lindholm is playing more 2 way than offensive, so they seem to be one and done a lot. Hiberdeau is playing more with a defensive player than he's used to. Toffoli is the one bright spot. I don't expect him to be a 40 goal guy, but he easily could.

By the looks of it, the Flames are going back to the 5-1-0 lines. Unfortunately, Lewis is on the 2nd line, but whatever. Would prefer Ruzie with Backlund, but Sutter wasn't happy with a 4th line that had 2 scored on it. Is that on Ruzie? Not really, as he put two RHS on the wings. They lacked a lot of chemistry. But anyway, back to the original.

The depth in the AHL is arguable. Really it comes down to NHL ready depth. We have a lot of guys that could play in the NHL but Sutter is reluctant to give them 10 games. Zary, Phillips, Pospisil, Zahorna, Meloche are a few examples. Pelletier has taken a bit of a step back. Whether they stood out or not is a function of what they played. Very few got a good look with NHL players, so at times they were just trying things themselves. Zary di the most of the bunch, but he's a new pro. No good reason to bring him up yet. As well, he's a C, so no real room for him. We need to fix the problems we have with exits. That has been our biggest problem, whether it's extended time or turnovers. The roster is what it is and we really see a hole on one of the lines. Can't have top 6 guys playing with a 4th liner. Whether that's Lewis or Lucic.

So, last night was a bunch of bad giveaways, some by the D, some by forwards. All it did was give additional help to the other team. One bad line change ended up being a 2 on 0 chance (yep a goal). Last night no Tanev. What I would say about Kyl is that he exits the zone fairly easily. He makes mistakes, but recovers well. His skating gets him out of trouble. Guddy was good for being really hard on the forwards. In his absence, Big Z has stepped up.

Unknown goalie shutout. So expected.

I thought that Meloche may have more upside, but no idea. Didn't really stand out. The 4th line looks jumbled with Lewis over Lucic. Not how I would draw it p, but then again Lewis isn't much for the Backlund line either.

Oh yeah, all I was saying was that 3 goals he had little chance on. The first breakaway was probably on him, though is was akin to a shootout goal. I don't blames the loss on Vladar any more than I did on Markstrom. Save a bunch, let in one too many.

What I am referring to is that we have subtracted 2 (3 incl Monny) players that were part of the core for multiple years. These are support players, these are the top 2 players on the team that left. And we don't currently have the middle pairing LD yet. Weegar will take a bit of time to focus on the basics of Flames D-zone and puck movement. He's not there yet. But the bigger issue is we lost two top line players and are trying to integrate two new players. Huberdeau was on a run and gun team, which is why Tkachuk is able to score at this time. He was always more about offense. Huberdeau has to speed up his game where it comes naturally, but in a Flames system. We are getting burned on turnovers because we haven't solidified the defense. We are talking about wide open players and rushes. We don't get many of those opportunities because we don't run and gun. And we are a bit slower in that type of transition. We saw it a bit more last year where Johnny would be sprung. That level of speed hasn't yet shown itself, meaning that only Kadri and Backlund are seeing those develop. Lindholm is playing a much more conservative game.

4-3 goal (PP) - little chance for a goalie to stop the shot on the cross crease pass 4-4 goal (SH) - breakaway from the blueline in; was a brutal drop pass that created it 5-4 goal (EV) - turnover with last man being Lucic, 4 on 1 I get that he needs to keep them in the game, but only one of them had any defensive help. Markstrom played better in the Oilers game, but they also had more team effort and less wide open chances.

The only thing that concerns me is that we are 5-3-0 this year. 8 games, where a lot of teams played 9-10 so far. We've started from behind and come back to win. We've had leads where we allowed the other team back in. Concerning, but it's not panic time. Goaltending is not a problem. Turnovers with no support seems to be hounding us. Lucic's turnover that lead to the GWG. Kadri's turnover was worse, as there was no support behind him. But 5 forgetable minutes killed this game.

Brutal

Is Hanifin ever going to score?