Any major complaints about Irving are off base. Maybe he could've stopped one or two of those, but by the same token no one would've batted an eye if he'd let in one of two of the point blank chances he stopped. He didn't look amazing, but the Flames play in their own zone in the 2nd half of the game was a travesty. There were long stretches where they lost pretty much every battle for the puck down low.
From what I've seen of the Flames this season they look excellent when they can drive possession, but their play without the puck leaves something to be desired. When the team is on the attack and has the puck, additions like Wideman and Hudler make the Flames look like a completely different team from previous years. But when they face another good possession team they could definitely run into trouble because they haven't really shown the ability to effectively defend. I mean, if every game could see them own the puck like the Chicago game they'd be fine, but that's impossible.
Driving up goal differential is always the goal. If you have "uptempo" hockey that relies on forwards abandoning the zone leading to more GA you're really no closer to winning than you are playing Sutter hockey.
I still think there are some positives there though. The team's possession numbers are good and they should probably have more points than they do. But it's going to be a tough slog with the current center situation.
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