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11. The night before the Heritage Classic, Calgary captain Mark Giordano preached a little bit of patience. “I’ve been on teams that played worse than this one,” he said, “that weren’t 6-5-1.”

Both Giordano and Travis Hamonic discounted the idea the Flames were still recovering from the playoff loss to Colorado, but did admit that when things go badly, they’ve had trouble recovering. Then, against both Winnipeg and Carolina, they lost late 1-0 leads, getting just one point out of four. Peters is clearly unhappy with what he’s seeing.

GM Brad Treliving isn’t afraid of change. I don’t get the sense anything is imminent, but he’ll look to see what’s out there. Johhny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan are struggling. Heading into Saturday’s game, Gaudreau led the league in zone entries (credit: Sportlogiq), which is expected. However, you can see he’s not himself when it comes to making plays once he’s there. That has a huge effect on Monahan, who needs to get it in prime scoring areas to finish.

12. Giordano is convinced he can be an even better defensive player than he was last year, when he won the Norris Trophy. “I’m not sure I’ll get 74 points, though,” he said with a smile. “A lot of things went my way.”

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...nsions-rising/