[Samonadreau]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

It's surprising how poorly the defensive effort has been this year. Even more surprising is that despite the poor play on the back end, Hartley seems much more open to juggling the forwards than the defensemen. I don't think it would hurt to have Smid and another dman (try Nakladal?) regularly sub in for the poorest performer. It can't get any worse. And it may even help in the sense that it does seem that the defenders right now are really, really worried at all times about the goalie giving up a softie. They need a defender or two with a fresh outlook to slot into games and help break the monotony.

The other thing I've noticed is that the box the Flames form around the goalie is much more compressed this year. I know that our strategy is to let teams do their passing back and forth on the outside, but once they try to break in the middle then the sticks and shot blocks come into play. But it seem this year the 5 players on the ice are collapsing much closer to the goalie, giving teams far too much room to maneuver in the Flames zone. So many times this year the Flames have given up a goal with 4 Flaming Cs being within a meter of Ramo; they're just panicked and out of sorts. I hope Hartley / Treliving realize that part of that is probably an overcompensation for the fact that the skaters have little confidence in the goalie.

I really think the forward play has been fine this year. Not amazing, but fine. Hartley needs to be more punitive on the defenders and bring up Nakladal in order to have 2 dmen that can rotate in. And give Ortio a run, just because. Hartley has a preference for Ramo, but right not it's not doing him or the team any favours. He needs to realize and accept that.

All in all, I'm sad to lose to Florida. Yeah it's early in the season and all that... but you gotta get points against Florida.

And yes Nakladal really needs a shot sooner than later. Lets see what we have in this guy.