La première étoile: Hugo Carpentier - Flames beat Ice Hogs

[Reggie Dunlop]

3-1 Flames over Rockford.

Carpentier, Cracknell and Peters with an empty netter

[Drunk Skunk]

Both Carpentier and Cracknell had a goal and an assist, first and second stars respectively. It was a great game. The Icehogs' goalie, Niemi, was fantastic, stopping 34 shots. Quad City's special teams are atrocious.

[dobbles]

was a good first game. sucked to see the PP do pretty awful like last year. i seem to be alone in this opinion, but i didn't feel like niemi played that great. i think it was more missed chances and good d in front of him. there was a stretch in the 2nd period where he stayed down for a good 15 seconds. seemed like he was just waiting for the puck to get cleared and hoping for the best... i think it is promising the flames haven't given up an even strength goal in the first 2 games.

[icarus]

How are the new Flames looking? Fitting right in it seems. Cracknell played more games in Vegas than QC last year right?

[SparkyOne]

Originally Posted by icarus

How are the new Flames looking? Fitting right in it seems. Cracknell played more games in Vegas than QC last year right?

Yes, he did. Most of the new Flames looked great....though I was personally disappointed in Ryder and Greentree. But it was the first game, so I'll give 'em time! VanderGulik got in a fight....I think there were some unsettled "issues" from Friday night.

The puck was taking some funky bounces, but everyone played pretty well together and it's obvious that they'll get better with time. The "new" guys who moved up from Vegas were obviously more comfortable out there since they had played up before.

Niemi had some unbelievable stops! Dobbles, not sure where you sit, but I was up above him....and he was using literally every part of his body to stop pucks!

[SparkyOne]

Originally Posted by Drunk Skunk

Both Carpentier and Cracknell had a goal and an assist, first and second stars respectively. It was a great game. The Icehogs' goalie, Niemi, was fantastic, stopping 34 shots. Quad City's special teams are atrocious.

I commented that our PK, which was third in the league last year, looked to have slipped quite a few places! And the PP wasn't much better, though I'm hoping some of that was Niemi. To not score on three 5-on-3s in the first 10 minutes of the third....

One of my favorite parts of the night was watching Pops get into it when the puck was down on our end....

This is going to be a fun season!!

[QCsec113]

I have to also agree it was a little sickening watching the 5 on 3s and coming up with nothing!!Lundmark and greentree were out there together for those and were not very impressive at all last night though I will say lundmark does have one hell of a slapshot!

[Hack&Lube]

How was attendance and the crowd for the home opener?

[dobbles]

attendance was 5,231. lower than i had hoped. still puts in about the bottom third of teams that have played so far.

http://stats.theahl.com/stats/schedu...iew=attendance

we drew quite a bit more than rockford did the previous night against us, and almost as much as peoria did. though iowa put up a huge first night number. those are the teams i always try to compare to. those are all our close rivals and good markets to compare to.

there was a pretty good vibe in my opinion. though i think we did pretty awful in our attempt at a 'river of red.' i would say only about 50% of people were wearing red.

not near as electric as last years opener, but still ranks up there among the better games i have been to.

[Muta]

I almost wish Quad Cities would somehow be able to play a game in Calgary against somebody, perhaps Manitoba, in the future down the road; I think it'd be an interesting marketing campaign. Perhaps between a 2-game homestand.