[heep223]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Just quit while you are ahead here. The Sabres were the better team that night as the score indicates.

Man, I apologize for beating this to death....but you and Polak cannot be serious. I appreciate that you are not wanting to sugar coat losses and that you don't want to become naive like the Oiler fan base has been for the past 5 years, and I agree, but come on. It's like you're wearing anti-rose coloured glasses.

The fact is, Calgary has been generating more offence in recent games and that’s why the signs are encouraging, despite the results. In the first three games of this skid, Calgary spent more time in the offensive end than not. In fact, in those losses to San Jose, Toronto, and Buffalo, the Flames generated 181 even strength shot attempts for as opposed to just 126 against for a shot rate of 59.0 percent. Plain and simple, in terms of how offensive zone time is divided, Calgary got almost 60 percent of it, peaking at 62.1 percent against the Sabres.

Here’s a good, somewhat cruel, idea of how things balance themselves out. Following the 4-3 overtime win over the Colorado Avalanche on Dec. 4, the Flames were at a peak record of 17-8-2. In those first 27 games, they were shooting at 11.7 percent overall and 9.6 percent at even strength -- both were second highest totals in the NHL at the time. In the five games since, those percentages have dropped to 4.9 percent and 5.0 percent, respectively.

I don’t think it’s being overly simple to say spending more time in the offensive zone than your opponent and defending really well are pretty big precursors to prolonged success. Yes, the Flames need to focus on making fewer mistakes at key times, and yes, they could stand to sharpen up a little of late. But, the fact is, over the last five games Calgary has done the things they need to for success more often than not.

http://flames.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=744181