[mikeecho]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

No, you don't have to take 21 instigators. Maybe you just take the one. If things don't change, then you pick their best player and start hacking them on the wrists too as often as possible. Or you start playing chippy and making sure you finish as many checks as possible against a few of their star players - and make sure they are clean - to get the point across.

Refs aren't going to call all those slashes against you either, and they are not going to call penalties on all big clean hits. You don't necessarily have to drop the gloves, or jump a guy, but you can respond as a team. If Boudreau can utilize that game plan, why can't the Flames make an in-game adjustment and do likewise?

I am not calling for two handed chops to the head, or cross-checks to the teeth, or dropping your gloves and jumping someone totally 'gooning' them. However, if a team is a team, there should be some push-back. Flames don't show it enough, and don't have a PP that allows them to use it as a deterrent either (even if the refs chose to call a couple).

You simply push back and make it known that the Flames stick up for one another, and don't shy away from some of the nasty stuff that goes on during games. The least you can do as a team is muck it up after the whistle, start crashing the net a bit (without Johnny, life sucks for the Flames, but without Dubynk, life sucks for the Wild too). I don't endorse the Flames play cheap all the time - especially gooning it up - but they should adjust.

Either way, they send a response. The response is either "Don't try this with us, or we will give it back to you." or "This definitely works against us, and we are unwilling to do a thing about it, so can we have more please?". That's the response the Flames kept sending the Wild last night. All the Wild ended up doing was obliging, really.

Dumba didn't even take an instigator for dropping his gloves and jumping Hathaway. Standing up for teammates isn't that hard.