Game Thread #9: Chicago Wolves @ Quad City Flames

[Drunk Skunk]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/downstroy/flames150.jpg Vs. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/downstroy/wolves150.jpg

On The Air: Listen Live for Free (http://208.67.186.169/QuadCity) or Watch the game live, via b2 PPV (https://www.b2livetv.com/liveevents/Hockey/AHL/Pro/QuadCity/billnow.asp). Cost is $6, click the link 5 minutes before the 7:05 PM CST start time.

This is the ninth game of the year for the Flames, and the eight game of the year for the Wolves. It is the first ever meeting between the two teams, and AHL game #132 on the season. Chicago is the AHL affiliate of the Atlanta Thrashers.

Scouting QC:
Record: 2-4-0-2, tied for last in the Western division
Leading scorers: Points - Tim Hambly: 3-4-7. PIM - Brandon Prust: 38
Last Time Out: The Flames outplayed the visiting Manitoba Moose for two periods, but faltered in the last frame; giving up the tying goal with 2 minutes left. They lost in an 8 round shootout.
Around the Corner: The Flames host the San Antonio "Don't call us the Spurs" Rampage on Saturday and Sunday this weekend.
Notable Roster News: Eric Nystrom remains on call-up with the Calgary Flames. Dan Ryder was suspended indefinitely by the team on Wednesday
as well.

Scouting Chicago:
Record: 6-0-1-0
Leading Scorers: Points - Steve Martins: 3-6-9. PIM - Boris Valabik: 34
Last Time Out: The Wolves suffered their first non-win of the season last Saturday. The Milwaukee Admirals and Wolves had a 0-0 scoreless tie through regulation, and the MilAds scored a goal in overtime.
Next Matchup: The Wolves do not play again until Wednesday the 7th. It is another matchup with the Flames at the iMark©
Notable Roster News: The Wolves starting goalie, Ondrej Pavelec, is recalled to the Atlanta Thrashers. In his stead, former Calgary Flames goaltender Fred Brathwaite has taken over the reigns. Former QC Mallards goalie Rob Gherson was recently signed to the backup roll.

Random fact associated with tonight's game: Chicago Wolves coach John Anderson will be coaching a game in the iMark© for the first time since winning the first championship in Quad City hockey history. Since winning the Colonial Cup with the Mallards, Johnson has won three championships with Chicago, and is rumored to be in the running for the vacant Atlanta Thrashers coaching position.

[LockedOut]

QC loses 7-1. Cam Cunning with the only goal. Lalande in net stops 23 of 30 shots.

[Cerebral]

Final score tonight was 7-1 for Chicago. What in the world has happened to Calgary's AHL squad this season? As far as I can tell, the only significant players they have lost are Regehr Jr., Ference and Taratuhkin and they added guys like Stevenson and Pelech to the mix.

[Reggie Dunlop]

No excuses really.

Best part about listening to the game was finding out Mr. Appliance was joined the fine stable of broadcast sponsors.

The Wolves owned the Knights last year too. If I recall, there was a 9-1 drubbing.

[Drunk Skunk]

The Wolves came out ready to play, the Flames didn't. They had three goals in the first nine and a half minutes or so. The Flames outplayed the Wolves in the second and third, but every time they made a mistake, it was turned into a goal. Brathwaite played a great game, stopping, I think, 39 shots. The Flames outshot the Wolves by a decent margin as well. Lalande is ... well, I will be nice and say that I think he should be in Vegas rather soon.

[pioneer98]

Very disappointing loss. There were only 3,200 on hand, but it was an enthusiastic crowd especially considering the outcome.

The refs didn't help things the first half of the game, but that is not to say they determined the outcome. Officiating has been way better than the UHL, but the first 30 minutes of tonight's game were several bad calls. There were probably 4 blown off-sides calls in that time frame (calling it when they shouldn't have, and they missed one obvious one).

I've seen Lalande play 3 games now, including the one @ Milwaukee. This was the worst game of the 3 by far (I'd call the other two games "average"). He maybe should have been pulled after allowing 3 goals on his first 7 shots. I won't be disappointed if he "Wins a trip to Vegas!"©

The Flames still have 4 more games on this homestand. I'm hoping they can get their scoring woes figured out vs San Antonio. I also hope the crowd is as enthusiastic tomorrow night as they were tonight.

[Drunk Skunk]

I am starting to wonder about the attendance. It looked like quite a bit more than 3,200 to me tonight. I would have said over 4,000 easy. That's the third time in five games that I think the numbers were below the actual attendance.

Deveaux for the Wolves is a punk. Twice he started something and refused to drop the gloves. The first time Prust had his gloves off already and was about to start pounding on the big dope. For a big guy, Valabik can move really well.

[pioneer98]

It looked like there were at least as many people there as last Friday night (3,500-ish), but obviously there weren't.

Aaron Roof mentioned the Wolves taking advantage of the Flames' "young defensemen" on the postgame show. I can guess who he was referring to. It did seem like Chicago was often quicker into the zone than our defensemen. I can only recall maybe 1 goal being scored when they blew by a defensemen, but their speed (and/or our slowness getting back) did result in many second and third chances on those rushes, which did result in goals.

I'm still confident this team will get things together at some point. They've got a lot of talent back from last year's team, and it's still early in the season.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Chicago is one of those weird holdovers from the old IHL -- that is they like to run their own show as an independent. It seems like having a NHL affiliation is an afterthought. Given the market they're in, they see the NHL Blackhawks as their competition for the local dollar. They have a bunch their own guys on the roster -- thirty-something former NHLers and the like.

Kind of flies in the face of the AHL's mandate as a developmental league, but that's how the Wolves like to roll. Sutter was interviewed once on that same 9-1 broadcast and said as much. He wasn't really all that concerned by the score.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Well, I just got an email from Aaron Roof, and Sutter's going to be in Moline this weekend. Probably a good time to read the Riot Act, and if I recall correctly, a similar trip last season produced some good results.

[SparkyOne]

I am more than disappointed. I don't pretend to know what the problem is, but when we have to play the last half of two consecutive games shorthanded because guys are coming not ready to play, to me that's a bigger problem than losing a game with 110% effort. They had a great 30-35 minutes in the middle of the game....but unfortunately, games last for 60 minutes!

I love this team, want the AHL, and drove nearly 200 miles last night to be at the game and support the Flames. I was 10 minutes late....and walked into a game where we were already behind 3-0. Four or five guys can't play that many minutes night after night and expect to win a game.

I take a 6-year-old (who's on his third year as a STHer and knows more about hockey than many adults!) to games. He watches what happens on the ice and misses little. He also loves player buttons...and chooses his buttons based on performance, not popularity. Last night toward the end of the game he told me that his next button would be Pardy. Maybe somebody should tell Palin and Baldwin and Pelech that they're not playing up to their potential! One night he didn't want one because he couldn't figure out who deserved it.

Roofie said last night that Sutter would be his guest tonight at the live post-game show in the Club Lounge, and King will be on tomorrow night. Maybe somebody ought to ask Sutter what, if he expects 5,000 people at a game, the organization intends to do to bring the casual fan to the game, since winning two games and losing two in a week by a combined score of 15-2 doesn't quite cut it! I get the "developmental league" stuff....but even in those leagues fans usually see improvement in players over the course of a half dozen games....

Okay....now I have to go make arrangements to travel to next week's game in Cleveland and get ready for tonight's game. Hopefully they can start turning things around....

(Oh yeah....I agree about the attendance. When I was waiting to go down to my seat, I actually said to the security guy that it looked like there were close to 4,000 at the game. I'm beginning to wonder how they count!!)

[pioneer98]

I'm getting tired of hearing how upset McGill is. Obviously him getting upset isn't changing the results any. The coach shouldn't have to scream at them to motivate them - being one step from the NHL should be motivation enough. If motivation really is the problem, then maybe sending a few guys to Vegas might serve as a wake up call.

I don't think it's a problem of motivation, and it's pretty obvious it's not a question of talent. It seems like their biggest problem is lack of teamwork. They have a core group from back last year's 1st place team, but maybe these new players are not meshing well with them.

I hate to compare the Flames to the Mallards...but the Mallards certainly got off to a horrible start last year due to a lack of teamwork. Guys just didn't trust their teammates to perform and ended up trying to do too much themselves. I'm speculating, but I really can't think of any other reason for the awful play.

Because of the talent they have, I really think they will turn it around at some point. There are only 71 games left.

[SparkyOne]

Watching tonight, I've come to the conclusion that we're missing a "creative" player....someone who can make things happen and create opportunities. We really don't have that right now.

When I was posting earlier today, I was wondering whether Taratuhkin carried these guys on his back last season and, with him gone now, they're struggling. Instead I'm wondering tonight whether Taratuhkin was the type of player who's missing from this team.

I think the brain trust better put their heads together and come up with something.....soon!!

[Reggie Dunlop]

Taratukhin really didn't get his mojo working until partways through last season, and even then I believe he was more a multi-purpose player than a "creative" one. He was well-liked though and was considered the best player by season's end. At any rate, I don't think he was a leader-type owing to linguistic limitations

Boyd fits the description of offensive catalyst better. Van der Gulik also has the ability to lead a team on sheer will. But on whole, they all need to step it up.

Must be frustrating for Quad City fans though. Team would have made a better initial impression charging out of the gate. Being patient probably isn't something you want to hear, but they are capable of better.

[SparkyOne]

I know. I'm a die-hard and won't quit on these guys. But, after 3-5 years of bad hockey in the UHL and the promise of so much better, I'm afraid of what's going to happen here if they can't start getting more fans in the doors.

In talking to Quad City front office folks, I'm not alone in that. This team has made what was a challenging task much more difficult.

Sutter did nothing to address anything last night except give us a bunch of double talk. I was hoping they would take questions from the audience.... Maybe they need to bite the bullet and bring in someone with a little more experience for a few games to show these guys what can be done. And a leader doesn't necessarily have to be a big talker....he can lead by his performance on the ice as well.

I'm definitely not on the McElhinney bandwagon. While this kid is down here losing game after game for us with at least one bad goal every game, Keetley's getting rusty opening and closing the door in Calgary. He's good, and I cut CME some slack for the first two or three games, but when is the rust gone? There's no way that last goal should have gotten past a guy at his level last night. I think it's time to begin the rotation and let one of these two earn their spot with their play, even if it's behind Krahn in the Quad Cities with Lalande in Vegas.

[pioneer98]

It may sound odd, but I'm only slightly worried about attendance at this point. Having 6 home games in 10 days is a tough sell, especially this early in the season. Even if they were playing better it's just tough to sell that many games so close together. I don't know how it ended up this way, but its better to have the games spread out more. The plus side is that the rest of the way the home games are spread out better.

What spurred so much attendance at Mallards games back in the day was the rivalries. Rivalries don't develop in the first 10 games of a franchise's existence. They need time to develop. In fact, it may not be until the end of this season or even next season before we get some good rivalries going outside of Rockford. Even that one is a rivalry in name only, since we are starting with a clean slate of players.

The diehards are understandably getting restless, but many of the casual fans have yet to come out (other than opening night perhaps). As tough as it is, we need to have patience. In February, this stretch will hopefully be a distant memory.

[SparkyOne]

True, true....I'll try to ramp up the patience!

I think we got the schedule we did because we're the new kids. And I'm thinking that Rockford not having home ice until this weekend didn't help the situation at all!

I like the schedule after this week....much better spread of home and away games.

[Cerebral]

Quad Cities is currently down 3-2 to San Antonio with 5 minutes left. Boyd picked up a second assist on the powerplay but he is also -3 on the night (along with Pelech and Chucko).

[Cerebral]

And immediately after posting that, Quad Cities scored on the PP to tie it at 3 (Boyd and Pelech both picked up assists).

[Cerebral]

Quad Cities ended up losing 42 seconds into OT. Germyn took a penalty late in the third and San Antonio consequently scored on the PP.

[SparkyOne]

Heard a couple of times this weekend that there may be some personnel changes coming soon and we'll see some different faces on the ice.

I hope that means we get Keetley back. He deserves a shot, since McElhinney certainly can't seem to get it done. Since coming down on the 23rd, he's had 5 losses....and no wins.

[Reggie Dunlop]

No offense, but I don't see a lot wholesale personnel changes on a minor league team. You're pretty much stuck dancin' wit' the girl that brung ya. A swap here or there, maybe a PTO to replace Ryder and Sutter reading the Riot Act hopefully produces more results.

Anyways, this thread isn't about the playin' the Wolves anymore.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Oh, and I listened to the game Sunday. The Flames were dominant in the third. Did well to battle back. Tough break in overtime, though.

[Reggie Dunlop]

nm

[OnTheEdge]

Its hard to make changes when you have signed Prospects .
We could use a playmaking defenceman and another puck moving forward for the PP to replace Germyn (who justs like to shoot from anywhere and not look for the open man )

[SparkyOne]

I don't think it will be wholesale, either. I do kinda wonder, though, if maybe they'll switch out a couple of people with Vegas. Guess it depends on what their contracts say!

I gotta say, even though Germyn scored two goals yesterday, I'm a bit disappointed in his overall play.