Monahan is quickly becoming such a force on this team. Flames are lucky to have him. He is really showing that he does in fact have #1 center potential. Just keeps on building up his game. Just as impressive as his offensive game lately is his defensive game. You see Hartley deploy Monahan on some key defensive zone faceoffs and assignments, and it looks like Monahan just doing everything that needs to be done out there. You can see how the other team seems to be having much more trouble containing him.
Baertschi - to quote Millions - "This is what happens when you keep moving your feet." Maybe the sickness was affecting him since the call-up (though I thought he was improving in little baby steps), but he didn't coast out there tonight. You finally saw him flying out there. He can do things at speed which is nice considering that this team has quite a few speedsters coming up. Hope he just keeps this up and becomes just as difficult a guy to send down as Jooris and Granlund are. Kid can be a huge piece of the final puzzle if he keeps progressing towards what most thought he was capable of. Really like the fact that Hartley paired him with two hard-working speedsters - really think that rubs off on Sven. Keep those 3 together please.
Speaking of Byron - you have to start thinking that Byron is a keeper now. Needs to practice his shootout moves a bit (though they usually look good - kid is snakebitten as the come on breakaways), but other than that I can't think of a single issue with this kid's game. He literally does everything out there. I don't think he will ever be a guy that you build around, but this is a kid you keep to help you win games. Really nice to see him pot a couple, and who wasn't pulling for him to get the hatty? So close.
Hiller was shaky, but it was nice to see the Flames win in spite of shaky goaltending, rather than just because of it. One of the bigger doubts near the start of the season with regards to the Flames winning was the 'unsustainable numbers' being put up by the goalies. Well, they fell back down to earth (and neither one have been 'downright terrible' - just a few squeakers) and the Flames still manage to win games. Nice to see.
Gaudreau has cooled-off somewhat though - his passes are getting picked off a bit too regularly for my liking. Looking for him to rebound soon and overtake Forsberg. Really want this kid to win the Calder. Does some really nice things in such tight spaces without any time, but then makes a pass that you see just being picked off right before it happens. Hopefully he picks up his game a bit. You can see how hard he is trying out there - both on offence and defence - so I wouldn't be worried, just hoping he gets back to being the catalyst he has shown himself to be.
By the way, though the Coyotes lost, I have to say they haven't been suffocatingly boring to watch the last few times they played the Flames. I am sure the team didn't execute "Tippet Hockey" properly, but I believe the last few games against Arizona have actually been fun to watch. Wild games weren't boring last year either, which was the other team I would cringe about watching against the Flames.
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