[CaptainCrunch]

Ok watching this game from a hotel room in Burnaby and I like the fact that the game was on even earlier out here. Besides the obligatory woohoo and a gif, here's what I thought

The good

Hiller was brilliant, beyond that I once heard a fighter pilot described as "He certainly won't blow you away with his brilliance, but he's confounded tactical. Hiller isn't like Kipper where you're wowed by the brilliance of his unlikely saves out of nowhere, however he's just a technically sound goalie who moves across the net so well and makes difficult saves look routine. The only thing that he shares with Kipper is his calmness.

Backlund continues to impress, he was making the good small plays and consistency does so, but he's such a smart player and picks up his defensive assignments every time.

GioDie, ok I made that up and its actually pretty horrible, but those two as a tandem are making the case at being the top 3 or 4 top pairing duos in the NHL. They communicate and support each other so well, and Brodie has taken another step up in his game. The problem though is that the PA announcer should just say "Ok Brodie and Gio are leaving the ice, get ready for a serious downgrade in play" so we can go get popcorn.

Paul Byron is a major sparkplug, and he was very noticeable tonight the only thing that he couldn't do was score goals, but this was a solid game against a tough team.

The bad

Ok, I hate throwing out the word Identity, but here it is, Identity. The Flames haven't come close to the type of work ethic that they had last year, I haven't seen that push that the Flames demonstrated in close games over the last half of the season.

Defensive awareness, while the Flames aren't the Oilers, they're not great without the puck, and I really don't see that physical mean streak that this team had last year. On a semi plus note the team picked up steam for a while in the third and played some great shutdown hockey for a while.

Johnny Hockey not sure that I can say he's bad, he's being heavily sheltered and not getting a lot of quality ice time. When I watch him play his defensive game has stepped up and he did a good job on a couple of setups but I don't think he's getting the experience and confidence boost that he needs here.

The Ugly

The top two lines didn't really generate any offense. Lets be honest, a wet dog with a note in his mouth should be able to get more then 16 shots and not go 20 minutes without a shot.

The gaps the gap control tonight was terrible, the Hawks constantly had players in space because the forwards didn't come back and pick up their back pressure assignments

The game felt like a preseason game with very little in terms of intensity or physical play.

Final Thoughts

A wins a win and over the years we've learned that successful teams have to absolutely bank points when they can because a slow start can end your playoff hopes quick fast and in a hurry.

I think that the Flames have some real offensive system problems, their pp and their offensive generation aren't there.

I get that this is the second game in two nights, but the Flames didn't start skating until about 5 minutes into the third.

I don't know if there are any lessons that the team can learn as a collective except that you can get lucky, but eventually wins like this are balanced off by either a blow out loss, or another team stealing one from you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy about the win, I think this was a hockey god balancing act. But this team just isn't where I thought that they would be in terms of drive.