After stewing on things a bit, aside from the refs slant towards the Oilers last night, the Flames did take a bunch of undisciplined penalties. IIRC< the last couple of year the Flames have been one of the least penalized teams in the league. Don't know if this is a direction the coaches and management want. But the PK better be what it was last night if hats the case.
Elliott was not his usual confident self, hopefully this is just an adjustment game and he can settle in for the long haul. Man he looked over zealous n his movement last night, but played really deep too. which was weird.
I sincerely hope Grossman never sees a game in a Flames uni again. His few blunders took any wind out of the Flames sails. I mean that give away on goal #1 was like quicksand. It's not that he made a bunch of terrible mistakes, but he really made a couple incredibly poorly timed devastating ones. And he just doesn't have the skill to rectify those when he does make them.
NEVER put Kevin in the doghouse. And Never...ever split up the top pairing again. Gio/Brodie are the anchors. Kevin and Hamilton are the #2. The rest is fodder other than Kulak. Those vets Wideman and Engelland should be on press box the rotation.
As far as coaching goes, Gulutzan played timid. But as with all new coaches, he needs more than one game and a weird training camp to get these systems in place.
And the PP needs to be better, still looks gross.
|