[Cali Panthers Fan]

Every team has rough stretches. Ours just happened to occur when the goaltending went sour. It affected literally everything else as the Flames tried to scramble even more in their own end to cover up more for the goalie, never sure of when a weak one was going in, destroying team confidence. When they had to collapse nearly constantly to help the goalie, they lost the ability to get out of their zone and spring a couple forwards in a transition attack, which has led to most of their offense this year. This isn't a team that can consistently grind out a cycle game and create consistent offensive pressure, just not enough size. So they rely on speed and defensemen joining the rush to create great opportunities. Without the ability to create speed in transition and have defensemen join the rush, they lost most of their offense. The defense wasn't terrible in that stretch (looking at shots against), just had to play from behind way too often, which forces them to become overly aggressive, leading to more odd man rushes the other way.

It all starts in net with this team, and they can beat any team when the goalies are playing confidently and not giving up any weak goals. The rest of this season will depend on what they decide to do with the goaltending situation. Unless Ortio falters badly I think he will stick and they will move one of the other 2 goaltenders. He's likely to push the veteran goalie more than either Hiller or Ramo would push someone. With the Hiller/Ramo tandem, it was a matter of playing whoever was hotter/better. Lately though, it's been more an approach of "who won't screw up as much".

You're not going to be a playoff team without consistent goaltending. There's just no way to build a system for the entire team without knowing what you can get from your goalie on a regular basis.