travel_dude

Tkachuk skates sometimes like he's wearing rubber boots.

Ok Hanifin, get back to what you had done early in the season. Sheesh.

Ok, so stop letting the fans call penalties. Get back to what they were doing in the 2nd.

Kylington continues to rack up assists

By the East, I assume you mean MTL, OTT a nd TOR. I would be happy with a sweep, and I want to see MTL and TOR fans yelling for trades. Beat MTL tonight, TOR tomorrow and then have TOR lose to Buffalo. I hope the NHL doesn't allow OTT to reschedule; no other teams seems to have had that luxury. I hate OTT. They embarrased us last year. They deserve a beat down. TOR needs to drop a few pegs so that the Toronto Sports Network and SN stop talking about them like they are a dynasty team. This is a huge roadie for us. 13 games on the road in total with this trip. 6 at home.

I think we traded for a 2nd Pitlick. We should probably get another Andersson and Lindholm.

^^^^^ A little more balanced. Pitlick stabilizes the 4th line. Dube and Backlund together are fine. Coleman getting some top 6 looks.

Okay, may have been a mistake, it seems that Francis has a different take: Eric Francis @EricFrancis · 1h Flames lines here in Montreal have been switched up a bit. Monahan movin’ on up, Dube to the wing: Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Coleman-Monahan-Mangiapane Dube-Backlund-Lewis Lucic-Richardson-Pitlick Hanifin-Andersson Kylington-Tanev Zadorov-Gudbranson Markstrom

The combo Sutter is keeping together is Lucic-Mangiapane, which is more questionable. I would have preferred Mangiapane-Monahan-Dube myself. Lucic hasn't helped Mangiapane that much, but he isn't hurting him. But what do I know. Dutter is seeing things in practice and game tapes he wanted to adjust. He talked about how Dube was a work in progress at C. Said he could shelter him at home, but he wasn;t quite as effective on the road.

Strangely enough, we are 0-1-2 with Ricthie out of the lineup and the same with Richardson in. Just a coincidence of course. More likely Lewis gets the popcorn. Dube is being used in all situations. He's like a Ryan. Play any position or line.

Vladar got some confidence with the WAS win, so it will be interesting to see how he does against the Laffs. They have no book on him.

I think it's time to move Monahan up. He was having a tough time with guys that really don't generate much offense. Considering all his scoring has been playing with the best players, I am okay with this. Lucic will not be feeding him as much in the slot, but he does dominate on the boards. Mangiapane is a great guy to team him up with.

It would seem that Sutter does not listen to us. He's had Ritchie on the 2nd line, sat Valimaki over Zadorov, gave a tough road game to the backup.... Big road trip, so I hope he knows what he is doing.

It would seem that Dutter is switching things up a bit: Projected lines via Daily Faceoff: Gaudreau – Lindholm – Tkachuk Coleman – Backlund – Pitlick Lucic – Monahan – Mangiapane Dube – Richardson – Pitlick Hanifin – Andersson Kylington – Tanev Zadorov – Gudbranson This may have to do with having last change. Weird, since we now have two Pitlicks. Assume the 2nd version is Lewis. It's not going to hurt Dube; he can generate with anyone. Less demanding duties so he can get back to scoring.

It looks to be Markstrom, so Dutter going all in tonight. Playing the Leafs will give Vladar a ton of confidence. I think we have to horses to outscore them and the type of D the skill guys hate. Matthews plays a hard nosed game, but Willie can be layed out. Brodie is their best all round D, but he's gonna hate playing Tkachuk, Lucic, Coleman, and Lewis. Tonight it's almost guaranteed that Lucic or Guddy will fight someone. On a side note, how bad has Nick Ritchie been. He's getting 3x what his brother makes and doing very little.

Well, it's a toss up. A lot of coaches prefer to use their starter behind a tired lineup. They tend to use the starter against the stronger team. Others tend to believe you use your best goalie when your team is fresh to give a better chance at winning one. The 2nd game then is gravy. After a regulation loss, Sutter may be a bit gun-shy. He was gutsy using Vladar in WAS, and played him behind a tired team against NJ. Toronto has a higher volume of shots from the top 6, while MTL spreads it out but are even through the top 9. Vladar has a little more trouble with wristers from the circle. Toronto is on game 1 of a B2B, but the next night is BUFF. JT is questionable, but Willy is taking up the slack. Line matching will be more difficult. Let's see if Sutter agrees, but the bigger game is TO. Vladar needs reps and probably should face MTL. Then again, it would be huge for him to knock off both the Caps and Leafs.

I look forward to him playing in the Memorial Cup. Got to see the end of a Sea Dogs game on the weekend, and he was having a rough game. Would have been nice for him to get a shot at the WJC.

They showed it. Twitter had him being called Johnny Muscles.

I'm talking about the physical punishment and chances at injury. Every sport has risks and some of them can end careers. In hockey, you get a stick to use as well as your fists. Baseball has 90% inactivity with flashes of events. No ice to lower the friction of a player sliding. No wooden box with glass and open boards to run into. No imperfect ice surface to worry about catching a blade in and ending up going head first into the boards. Very little one on one fight club events. The two sports with the highest number of brain injuries (major league ones) are hockey and football. Highest number of surgeries related to sports? Hard to say. Football and hockey rank up there. Baseball more on pitchers and catchers. Heatstroke? Football would be high up there, since baseball is team and individual play alternating. Risk/reward has hockey as one of the most, if not the most, risky pro sports considering the pay for the superstars.

It was one of those games that the ice was tilted, but the ice was bad. Saw some really weird bounces where the puch jumped when traveling flat on the ice. I think they need to fix the ice somehow. It might explain how we went 5-0 on the last road trip. But I digress. We have to do something to fix the top pair. Hanifin hasn't played a good game in some time. He's played okay, but his usage on the PP is perplexing. The 2nd unit was okay last night but mostly because it was a lot of down low play. In a EN situation, Hanifin out there with Ras was a mistake. He completely sold out on the Hertyl goal. Gave up about center ice. Ras was the only one skating, which I don't expect much when he was at the other side of the rink. That kind of effort from Hanifin gets you sat. When you are getting 19 shots in a period and the only goal you get the entire night is a greasy Bennett style goal, you have to think that we were playing too much on the corners. Why must we default to passing out of the slot? On a side note, Johnny threw a shoulder check against a Shark....on the boards. How crazy is it to see him do that?

Well at least you managed to guarantee a win againt the Oilstains. It's really hard to watch SN coverage of the Oilers. Edwards is such a tool. The 3-1 goal he screamed "this is exactly what the Oilers needed for their comeback". Big positive for him? CMD scored a goal. Like, who really GAF is a guy gets a cookie in a losing battle. MJ, has he ever provided anything usefull? Does he even watch games or just U-tube? Maybe he's good at sports book or hockey pools? He knows not much and has a hate on for more than one team.

He's disappointed this year. He looked a lot better last year, and I would actually prefer to see him with Tanev and Kyl with Ras. Between PP time, EN situations and 3v3, he's playing like we have an extra D out there.

So much for the streak. What was Hanifin doing?