[SuperMatt18]

I thought it was a pretty boring and lifeless game for both sides tonight. In the end the Jets got one more save and had the better goaltending but neither team really impressed.

Overall though I’m going to try to remain positive with how the season has went so far.

Flames have had the hardest schedule in the league so far according to hockey reference and have gotten through this first stretch at 4-4-1 including the stumble after the break.

Even considering the hard schedule the Flames are 8th in Corsi For % at 5v5, 7th in xGF% at 5v5, but 29th in shooting percentage at 5v5...that should normalize.

In terms of player performance:

Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Hanifin, and Tanev have all looked great.

Tkachuk, Mangiapane, Dube, Andersson, Valimaki, Nesterov, and Lucic have showed flashes of being good but have been also been poor at times. I think they will find some consistency as the season goes on.

Backlund, Giordano, And Ryan have been very poor by their standards and I have faith they will turn it around with more games to get in a rhythm.

Bennett, Leivo, and Simon have more to give still IMO and I think could be contributors in the right role.

Biggest thing for me is I really think we need to figure out our forward lines but I think once we find some chemistry up front this team could really take off offensively.

Overall the biggest question marks coming into the season were Gaudreau+Monahan, the defense core, and how Markstrom & Tanev would fit in, and so far these have all been positives. Now we just need to get the rest going.

Go Flames Go!