[News Roundup] September 22, 2016

[MissTeeks]

Hey, how about some camp news!

Five Questions at Flames Training Camp

http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hock...-training-camp

2. What about those PTO’s?

Among the list of professional tryout offers the Flames dished out over the summer are winger Chris Higgins and big defender Nicklas Grossman. Are there spots for either of those guys? Do they play themselves onto the Flames roster? With blueliner Ladislav Smid likely doubtful for the 2016-17 season, there is likely a spot for a seventh defender. Which direction do the Flames want to go? Do they add a veteran presence or plunk in a rookie to start the year? Last season, if you’ll recall, that happened in Brett Kulak’s case as he cracked the roster to start the 2015-16 campaign. Up front there are likely two to four spots up for grabs. Will Higgins prove he has enough left in the tank?

5. How quickly will the new faces adjust?
Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson are two welcome additions to the Calgary Flames goaltending crease. So much of netminding is about trust and understanding. Training camp is exactly where this level of understanding begins. Troy Brouwer will also be trying to adjust to a new squad of youngsters which, you’d think, would be easy for the 31-year-old to do considering he’s won a Stanley Cup and been on three extremely competitive teams (Chicago Blackhawks, Washington Capitals, and St. Louis Blues). It’s also about a transition on-ice for Brouwer. Then, there’s head coach Glen Gulutzan and his assistant coaches Paul Jerrard and Dave Cameron, who’ll be implementing a new set of systems for the Flames. The fan base is patient, understanding the Flames are in Year Four of a rebuild (technically). But they’re not that patient.

Newcomer Brian Elliott preparing for Flames training camp

http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hock...-training-camp

Speaking from experience, Brian Elliott knows this time of the year can be tedious, frustrating, and downright difficult to stay focused.
But on the other hand, the Calgary Flames netminder — who, on Thursday, is embarking on his first National Hockey League training camp with this group of new faces — embraces it.
This is also the perfect time for things to start coming together.
“This one is going to be different,” said the 31-year-old who was with the St. Louis Blues for the past five seasons. “Different isn’t bad. Change is welcome in my books. It’s going to be fun. I’m excited for it.
“It’s all about meeting your teammates and going through those struggles at camp. Sometimes it’s a grind but you get through it together.”

Informally, members of the Flames including back-up netminder Chad Johnson and various other NHL-ers have been meeting there for ice times.
Very casual skates, according to Elliott.
But that’s not the point.
“It’s been good,” he said. “Getting everything going with the guys and just hanging out with the guys; getting that locker-room talk is probably the best thing that can come out of those (sessions) right now for me.”

“You can’t really judge anything off those (informal) skates,” he said. “For us, we just kind of focus on the details as a goalie. The little things. When it gets into the scrimmages, things kind of open up. Someone is trying harder than the next guy and it’s kind of hard to gauge where the puck is going to go.
“Once camp starts and structure starts, we can see where we’re at.”

Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan brings his own stories, style to Saddledome

http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hock...-to-saddledome

Long before his introduction to the C of Red, Glen Gulutzan nearly joined the boys in blue.
In fact, in his home province of Saskatchewan, he was offered a badge twice.
“When I came back from playing in Finland (in 1997-98), that’s when I applied for the police force,” recalled Gulutzan, who will officially welcome main-campers Thursday for his first campaign as head coach of the Calgary Flames. “At that time, there were 1,000 applications for eight positions, I think it was, so I just threw one in to get experience. I wrote the aptitude test, and I passed. I got called in to run the POPAT (Police Officers Physical Abilities Test) … You’ve gotta run six laps, then you carry a dummy and jump over these things, and they time you. So I ran that, and I passed. Then they called me in for a lie detector, and I passed. Then they called me in for an interview in front of the board, and then they offered me a position to go to Regina. I had a contract to go back to Finland in my hand, too, so I declined.
“This is a true story,” he continued. “I declined, and they said, ‘Well, come back after you’re done. We’ll let you go play. You’ve got the contract.’ So I re-applied again the following May. Did the lie detector, did the POPAT, did the whole thing again. Got in front of the board again, they offered me the position to go to Regina and I said, ‘I might want to play again.’ And they said, ‘Don’t bother applying again.’
“The police force, for any hockey player, is intriguing … I did all the ride-alongs and I enjoyed that part of it, but the pull to coach was stronger.”

Which brings us to our next story, a knee-slapper from his days in Sin City.
Because long before his introduction to the C of Red, Gulutzan spoiled a night-out for a bunch of blue-haired concert-goers.
“In Vegas, not many goalies kicking around, and our (emergency) backup, true story, his name is Jay White and he was the 55-year-old Neil Diamond impersonator at the Rio,” Gulutzan said, pausing as his audience howls with laughter. “Seriously, he flipped up the mask and sang the anthem in his pads when he was backing up one night. From Toronto originally, 55-year-old Neil Diamond, had the hair and everything. Came in, gave the guys his CDs …
“I called him when Kevin Lalande was called up. He’d practise with us seven, eight, 10 times a year when we’d lose a guy. He was not bad. For 55, he was alright. So I phone him — it’s like, three in the afternoon and Kevin Lalande gets called up and I’ve got no backup goalie.
“I’m like, ‘Jay, hey, it’s Gully. You got a show tonight?’ And he’s like, ‘Yep.’ He goes, ‘Why?’ ‘Well, I need you for a backup.’ And he’s like, ‘Hold on, I’ll call you back in half an hour.’ Calls me back in a half an hour and goes, ‘I’m in.’
“He says, ‘I’d rather do that, so I cancelled my show.’ I told him, ‘There are going to be a lot of blue-haired ladies that are pretty upset Neil Diamond is not playing.’ ”

Gulutzan, accepted (twice) as a cop, educated as a teacher and a former captain of both the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades and the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, was in.
“There are things Bob established here that we want to keep in tact, 100%,” Gulutzan said. “He established a work ethic here. He established great accountability here. And those things aren’t going to change. I don’t want to dismantle everything that he built. There is lots of good — we all know that.
“I’m not Bob. I’m a different guy. I’m a different voice. I’m a different personality. I’m a different kind of coach. But some of the foundations that he built are universal, and I’m not going to tear those down. Those are what we’re going to build on. But we’re going to change things, and make it the way we want to play.”

“In the NHL, the differences between most teams is very minimal,” Gulutzan said. “But I would say honestly, there is going to be a definitive style change because Bob’s style and my style are different. And they’re considerably different, in the NHL spectrum. Are there a lot of similarities? You bet. But as far as the NHL differences go, there’s a pretty big difference.
“If you were to ask me, ‘Is the way Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh plays a lot different than the way you’re going to play?’ I would say there are minimal differences. Mike and I coached together (in Vancouver) and talked for hours together. So there would be minimal differences. With the way Calgary played last year, I think there will be definitive differences.”

Calgary Flames' Dennis Wideman still "sorry" about hit on linesman, eager to move on in 2016-17

http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hock...-on-in-2016-17

On Tuesday — two days before the start of Flames’ main training camp — Wideman reiterated his apology and spoke out about the difficulty of the situation.
“It was tough,” Wideman said at Tuesday’s annual Calgary Flames Celebrity Charity golf tournament at Country Hills Golf Club. “There was obviously a lot going on in the second half. It’s something you have to move on from. Obviously, I’m sorry it happened and the way it happened, and everything else.
“It was a tough year, and I’m looking forward to a fresh start this year.”
When asked about improving his image, Wideman insisted he isn’t going to change his style of play.
“I am going to do what I can,” said the veteran of 758 NHL games, who had a squeaky clean record with referees prior to the incident. “I’m going to obviously try and play the same way I’ve always played. Improving my image? I’m not exactly sure how to do that. Obviously, there are some people out there that aren’t happy about what happened. Obviously, I’m not happy with what happened and I’m very sorry about how everything played out.
“But all I can concentrate on is playing my game and playing the best I can.”

“I think you approach it the same every year,” said Wideman, who had two goals and 17 assists in 51 games last season. “Any player, you’re always trying to be your best and doing everything you can to be your best. Whether that’s a contract year or the first year of a new deal, second or third year of a deal … if you didn’t have that attitude or approach the season that way, you probably wouldn’t be here. I approach it the same way I do every other year.”

“With the new coaching staff and everyone we brought in the off-season, it’s exciting,” Wideman said. “Any time there is a new coach and you’re learning how to play new systems, there’s an air of excitement when you can start getting back into it.”

Calgary Flames GM hopes 'for the best' new Johnny Gaudreau contract negotiations get done

http://www.calgarysun.com/2016/09/22...tions-get-done

In no particular order — but starting with the most obvious — he began:

The absence of Johnny Gaudreau — Of course, partially this has to do with the ongoing World Cup of Hockey and his presence on the Team North America squad. But, well advertised, is Gaudreau’s contract situation. Or lack thereof. No contract = no training camp:

“Obviously, Johnny’s focus right now is (with Team North America). We’ll continue to bang away at (contract negotiations). You hope for the best. We hope it’s going to get done and going to get done soon. Time will tell.”

Injury update of Mikael Backlund (the Flames centre sustained a concussion playing for Team Sweden at the World Cup). He’s currently under evaluation by Flames doctors who happen to be in Toronto:

“Reports back are he’s doing well. Like these injuries, he’s under the protocol. It’s a day-to-day situation we’ll monitor. Mikael will be staying there for the next couple days and we’ll come up with a plan after that.”

Centre Sean Monahan not participating in the skating portion of training camp for precautionary reasons:

“I think everybody saw when Sean pulled out of the World Cup with a back strain. He’s progressing. He’s doing well. We just want to be cautious with this. So, he’s going to take the first couple days and continue with some individual work. We’ll get through the first little bit here — at least the first three pre-season games. We’re looking at him (coming back) in the last three or four pre-season games to prepare for the season. We just want to be cautious with him.”

Treliving pointed out there are roster positions up for grabs, particularly up front.

“We purposely kept a couple of spots open,” he said. “There’s competition. There are people here on PTO’s (Chris Higgins, Nicklas Grossmann, and Lauri Korpikoski included) a reason … there are spots to be won. This isn’t one where 12 or 13 forwards are all drawn up. This is going to be a performance-based camp, as they all are.
“We’re a long way from (the season opener on) Oct. 12.”

[nik-]

you're from the future

[Cole436]

I've missed this so much.