travel_dude

No penalty there, but should have been. Gaudreau hooked and hacked on the breakaway. This comes after Hanifin gives up the offensive blueline for offense and a 2 on 1 ensues.

Moneyhands gets the PP goal. Do we love him again?

Nice.

PP time. Turn the tables around.

Someone mentioned that Backlunds man was Bennett. Left the guy open to chase the puck.

Flames taking the foot off the gas for a shift. Bennett gets the tap in after 2 big chances.

What a shift

Brunette has grey hair

Good 4-3 PK.

Shorty please. Backlund you are up

Pike had this, though I don't know how they figured that... Shots 11-10 FLA (10-5 FLA at 5v5), scoring chances 11-4 FLA, high-dangers 3-2 FLA. (Via @NatStatTrick )

Except the PP, which they owned. Mind you, there was little in the slot.

I'm just ripping on him so he will prove me wrong. So far, the D has been a lot better overall. A bad pass here and there. Guddy almost killed the penalty all by himself. Him and Marky were the only ones able to prevent FLA from scoring. We had the puck on our sticks but gave it away within milliseconds.

Murray played a bigger part in those last two cups. Fleury didn't play the finals in either. The first cup, yeah he was enough to get the wins. So, no not 4 of the last 10

Hanifin trying to set up a Fancy Cat.

Sorry, was thinking you were serious. He was part of the organization for years.

Nice start for the team. Marky played that breakaway perfect. Also think that anyone other than Kylington takes a penalty on the play. Flames have missed open nets about 3 times that I could count.

Knight starts, so at least we face the lesser of two goalies. Doesn't mean much though if they score 4 or more.

You think they do a Lomberg tribute? Bennett yes. I am looking forward to the game to see how CGY makes up for their recent poor play. Talk is talk until the players actually show it on the ice.

The entire league knew Tampa was in a pickle. Nobody else seemed to be stepping up to trade with Tampa. One team stepped up and offered a 1st round to help them out. VAN doesn't make that trade and perhaps the Bolts don't win a cup. They don't have the 1st to offer for Coleman. Schmidt was a much better trade with a team over the cap.

I'm not a fan of our 4th line. That has a chance of bleeding goals. Backlund may get the Mangiapane bump. Monahan with Looch and Dube could work out similar to the way Bennett's line played in the playoffs. Dube has to get back to being much harder on the puck. The Fancy Cats don't have many holes in their lineup, if any. That D is punishing. 3rd pairing is probably the only pair we could exploit. What's your bet for the first fight? Bennett vs Ritchie?

Benning is where now? Just kidding. A team that helps another team out of cap hell should be accountable. Tampa used the pick from VAN to get Coleman. Vegas was able to remain cap compliant after signing Pietrangelo. I'm not saying you don't trade with them, but don't help them out so easily. VAN should have held Tampa over a barrel. Not give them a 1st when you are building a team.

Yeah, that's a pretty lofty projection. Let me put it another way regarding drafting goalies in the first round. Other than Tampa, what goalie drafted in the 1st round has won a cup in the last 10 year? Spoiler alert, Rask didn't play in the playoffs at all in 2011.

First of all, I said goalies, not non-forwards. Big difference isn't it. Maybe Coronato was not the best pick, but the best D were off the board. Ceulemans is tops in scoring on a 5th place team in the Big 10 - Div. 1 (5-8 record). I get the hype for Askarov, but so far, as a 19 year old, he is trending in the wrong direction. Button loves him. Button loves Cossa. Maybe Askarov will become the best goalie in the league, but he has a long way to prove that. Please list all the goalies taken in the first round since 2012 that are NHL starters. Vasilevskiy and Samsonov. Any others?

^^^^ I sorta have two minds about Leon's responses. 1) On one hand, the question was answered by a guy clearly frustrated with the team, and giving him a hard time about his answer isn't going to work well. Calling him pissy isn't really appropriate. 2) On the other hand, the player acts like an entitled baby. He's supposed to be out there representing the team. If this was the only incident that he ever showed that, then I would chock it up to how some players get annoyed with know-it-all analysts. But Leon also got very childish about Tkachuk's inclusion in the All Star game. Clearly, he feels he is on a completely different level that others and that a player that he feels takes cheap shots doesn't belong in the NHL. The funny thing about this is that Matheson is easily a Oilers fan as well as a reporter/writer. Not really sitting well in the Oilsphere. Spector called out Leon as a result. I'm not really a Spector fan, but he does post a lot of factual stuff and sometimes his opinions are spot on.