travel_dude

I get what Sutter is doing, but jeeze man you need two goalies going. After tonight 4 of 5 teams are outside the playoff mix. None are easy games. Anyway, we need a better start against a tired team. Put them in a hole and grind them down. They won't last 3rd period if we get on them early.

Oilers needed a PP goal to seal the deal last night. The new look defensive system allowed 38 shots on goal. Looking forward to the Cali trip. Kane in SJ. Should be a hoot. Big teams against Baby Nuge and the Orange Crush.

Well, they only have a base of 10x the people in Canada. Know how hard it is for US athletes to make the Olympics? Cream of the crop and most attractive on TV. The pool is bigger to begin with, then gets diluted by other sports. There is still a tendency to only draft "special" players out of the USA. As such, we only see the best ones in the NHL (or ones that appear to be the best). The average ones probably never see the NHL, even though they may be better than CDN or others. I do think that the number of players going into other sports is not exactly true. A linebacker would never make an AHL team, let alone NHL. A guy 6'10" is not really suited for the NHL. NFL careers last so short, unless you are in the top 2%. And the pay is less for the lesser ones.

Just expanding on your points. Sounds like repetition.

The D finished his check, which is what you are supposed to do. He wasn't targeting the head and a bigger guy unfortunately has that impact some times. It's a suicide pass. You make the play or bail. Not sure if he had much time to react, but he turned inward as opposed to turning outward. Many NHL players cut away to avoid the momentum of the impact. We have smaller players that do this all the time. Not trying to argue for the victim or hitter; it was an unfortunate outcome. It was not predatory. At least IMHO.

On one hand you talk about Monahan not being very good with Dube, but on the other you think that Ritchie would do well with Lucic and Ritchie. The common thread is Ritchie, who has been equally ineffective on 3rd and 4th lines. Dube is playing on LW and has been much more effective on RW. We need an effective 3rd line player for that line. Pushing Monahan to wing and asking Ruzie to help getting him going won't really work IMHO. Last night was not a great game, but the 4th line was not hurting them. Like every line, they got bottled up at times in the D-zone. Ritchie, on the other hand, was a drain. Big body but that's about it. If we have any desire to make some playoff noise, we need better. Find out now if Monahan can improve with a better winger.

I couldn't resist.....

I would have been happy with just the Vegas win, for points in the west sake. We had a built in excuse to show poorly. Losing to them would have bothered me, but only becuase it gives TSN more crap to peddle. I am not excatly sure what clicked. We have not been winning a lot at home, but then again they were so few and far between. How do you get on a home roll when you barely get two together. We miss out on playing the Oilers at home in December and get stuck playing in their barn again. Is it me or does having fans around cause the Flames to play tough. Zaddy, Guddy, Lucic, you name it. When we play tough and smart, we can win games like this. I wasn;t a fan of some of our D-zone play, what with the 2 foot passes to TO players. But we just looked at times like we were trying to transition without the extra bit of energy required.

It's not so much about penalizing the elite players as much as it is fixing a team from it's core. If the only way to win is for two players to produce 50% of the goals, then you have to be drastic. Overall, poor goalies, poor defense and poor depth. Scoring goals is not the solution.

I was reading about the drafting strategy the Flames had. Button wanted both Gaudreau and Kuch. Would not scout Johnny when he was in USHL because the Bruins had ears there. Wouldn;t ask about the player for fear of tipping their hat. They left Kuch too late, though. Figured he would go to the 3rd, but no idea why they risked it on Granlund and Wotherspoon. They had scouted him is Portland, but he wasn't exactly a stud. Wrong Granlund hehe.

Now we are 2nd in Pacific. Still have games in hand on LA and ANA. 3 back of Vegas with 4 games in hand. 5th in the west by Points %

Glorious win

Just shoot Backs

Now I want a Formosa pizza

Compliment TO with them down by 3. Yeah they got a goal. They are fresh and should be dominating the shot clock. Markstrom with some really good saves, but it's not domination by TO

Backlund with a weak attempt after a really good play

Typical game management call. It may be valid.

Price is wrong biatch...

Brodie, don't poke the Russian Bear

Protect the freaking goalies.

Ras and Kylington trying to outdo one another. You get a point, I get a goal. You get a goal, I get a goial.

Just before they got possession, he was looking around thinking I gotta hit something. No idea what to do or who to cover.

Gaudreau needs to implement Phase 6

Ritchie is just useless.