I'm glad Flames lost. They needed a wake-up call. Badly. They've been playing decently, but not well, and have still racked up Ws. What they need to learn is that they cannot coast. That's what happened tonight. Fantastic first 10 minutes of high-pace, quick turn river hockey. But, like river hockey, no D. And that resulted in a bad goal, a dumb play and a lucky goal.
The dumb play, I'm thinking, broke them. But good they worked reasonably hard to come back. However, they showed no toughness, no defence (still) and couldn't buy a goal to save themselves. That part happens. The first part was all on the team and the goalie at the time.
Not a smart move by Rittich - and perhaps finally this will smarten him up. FAR better to force the opposing player to NEED to make the perfect play to score than just handing him a gimme. Not surprised at the yanking, and fully supportive of it. He needs to stop doing that.
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