[PGT] Flames lay another egg. Drop 4-2 to the Wild

[Saint Troy]

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

The Flames do not need help on offense. They need help on defence from the forwards.

You’ve been over served. The offense is Monahan & Gaudreau, that’s it. The RW is a black hole, the bottom six is whatever’s worse than a black hole. Zero surprise that Gaudreau and Monahan make mistakes trying to generate O, as they know they’re the only ones scoring.

[Stay Golden]

Agree with your last post 100% Dion. My thanks are burnt up lol.

[Fan in Exile]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It’s probably because I choose to not post when the team plays like crap. But I enjoy hockey and I love the Flames. My life is too full to expend much energy getting worked up about something as meaningless as a hockey game. I don’t have time to be negative about this.

It appears to me that you expend a lot of energy as an apologist for every decision made by the Flames' management and coaching staff. When it comes to team performance and trajectory, I hope you are exhibiting patience and foresight but I sometimes wonder if it's merely denial.

I'd love for you to be right about everything and all my doubts to be wrong.

[kukkudo]

I did not mention D Sutter in my post because I doubt he would want to come here.

[calgaryblood]

Originally Posted by Saint Troy

You’ve been over served. The offense is Monahan & Gaudreau, that’s it. The RW is a black hole, the bottom six is whatever’s worse than a black hole. Zero surprise that Gaudreau and Monahan make mistakes trying to generate O, as they know they’re the only ones scoring.

We have been fine on offense for about 7 years straight. Last year included with Pretty much the same team.

[Torchdemall]

Some of you people seriously need to get a grip and try having some mental fortitude you seem to demand so highly over every player on the team.

News flash there are two professional teams out there, and you don't work yourself into form setting guys on the bench for every bad game or mistake. Mistakes happen and as games go tonight was a pretty decent one by the team, they just aren't finishing, all teams run through this sort of thing it is hardly the end of the world and warrants calling for firing, benching, and all the gnashing of teeth.

They should have won, they should have scored at least 4 goals easily but on these kinds of nights its a game of inches, a few either way for both teams your all singing praises ffs!

Everyone on the team aside from Smith needs to be better, thats professional sports it pretty much comes with the territory. They will get better they always do, and then the critics will disappear back into their holes until the next bad game.

Do any of you need some crutches, I figure a few of you might have twisted or broken your ankles seeing how you bailed out at the first sign of losing the game in the GT. Salute to you guys, you made me laugh watching you go ass over teakettle into the ditch, we'll pick you up later in the season when things are going better, we're good like that, hockey has this knack of building character into people.

Have a good night all, and Go Flames!

[Press Level]

[old-fart]

This team just seems to have no finish at home.

Lots of good opportunities, but zero finish. Sad.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Clearly tonight's loss about give aways late in the game but there were mishandles and bad passing throughout. That said there was also some great play but this was a severely depleted opponent.

The lines are not clicking. This game they had a volume of shots but to my eye they had few dangerous chances. Versteeg had a great PP goal but he's invisible 5v5, just like long stretches last year.

There is just a team wide offensive funk save for a few guys. Obviously the coaching staff are trying to do what's best for the team but whatever they've tried has failed to materialize so far. There are some obvious lineup tweaks that haven't been tried that I think would unlock a lot of offensive upside in this team. That's the frustrating part but it's going to take an injury that might not come (and who wants injuries?) before things get a needed spark.

Why Jankowski isn't up here is just bizarre at this point.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Fan in Exile

It appears to me that you expend a lot of energy as an apologist for every decision made by the Flames' management and coaching staff. When it comes to team performance and trajectory, I hope you are exhibiting patience and foresight but I sometimes wonder if it's merely denial.

I'd love for you to be right about everything and all my doubts to be wrong.

In either case, I don't care.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Torchdemall

Some of you people seriously need to get a grip and try having some mental fortitude you seem to demand so highly over every player on the team.

News flash there are two professional teams out there, and you don't work yourself into form setting guys on the bench for every bad game or mistake. Mistakes happen and as games go tonight was a pretty decent one by the team, they just aren't finishing, all teams run through this sort of thing it is hardly the end of the world and warrants calling for firing, benching, and all the gnashing of teeth.

They should have won, they should have scored at least 4 goals easily but on these kinds of nights its a game of inches, a few either way for both teams your all singing praises ffs!

Everyone on the team aside from Smith needs to be better, thats professional sports it pretty much comes with the territory. They will get better they always do, and then the critics will disappear back into their holes until the next bad game.

Do any of you need some crutches, I figure a few of you might have twisted or broken your ankles seeing how you bailed out at the first sign of losing the game in the GT. Salute to you guys, you made me laugh watching you go ass over teakettle into the ditch, we'll pick you up later in the season when things are going better, we're good like that, hockey has this knack of building character into people.

Have a good night all, and Go Flames!

God forbid anyone here criticise the Flames for the way they play. Lets blow sunshine up their arses and ignore the mistakes they have been making.

In fact you might want to send that message to the coaching staff who have also been critical of the teams play and comparing it to the start of last season. Players make mistakes, get criticised for it and learn from it.

Don't fall off that high horse you're on.

[GioforPM]

Man, I was not on the GT thread tonight, because I had to tape the game and buzz through it. I was ready for a lot of "good game but unlucky" posts in the PGT. Apparently in real time the Flames didn't control the majority of the play, Monahan didn't have a great game, Brouwer didn't have his best game in two years, Gio, Frolik, Ferland, Hamilton, Hamonic were not good, etc.

The result was too bad, and instructs the team that they can't stop skating even for five minutes. But they played a great game overall and if they play that way the rest of the year, they will win more games than they lose.

[Textcritic]

The way I look at this game is very similar to how I viewed the LA game: the wrong team won, but good on them for grinding out the win against the odds.

For the Flames, there is lots to feel good about in spite of the result. If they keep playing the same way with a few tweaks, they will be fine.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Better game overall from the Flames. Just some glaring mistakes that the Wild capitalized on. Stalock looked good and shut things down when the Flames were going hard.

Flames stopped skating for a while, and it cost them. Simple as that. Gulutzan has already sent a bit of a message with who got to play tonight. That's what I want to see from him time to time - keeps guys on their toes.

Bennett is squeezing his stick way too much - you can tell he is just feeling it out there. Remember when he 'threw the monkey off his back' after a bit of a scoring slump before? That shows you right there things weigh on him. He just needs a game or two to throw that gorilla off his back, and I bet he turns it around.

Defence goes from 'really good' to 'non-existent' for stretches. Hamilton hasn't been playing to his usual high-level - losing body-positioning at times, and what was once a killer wrist/slapper has turned into a Dion. However, I have little doubt that he won't turn it around and come back to form.

How anyone can criticize Monahan is beyond me at times. No, he is not a product of Gaudreau. Monahan and Smith are my two MVPs thus far in the season, with Gaudreau coming up in the #3 slot, followed by Brodie.

All in all so far this season, there are some stuff that needs to be ironed out and that is simply wrong, but there is a lot more good stuff than bad stuff happening on this team. I don't think that Gulutzan has thus far warranted much attention and finger-pointing his way - the Flames are not doing badly, but I do agree that ultimately the responsibility of how the team is playing falls on his shoulders. If the Flames play out most of the season without fixing these glaring mistakes (something that I do believe they will correct) then I do think that Gulutzan will be let go.

Coaching is a funny business. When things go badly for a coach, either your system is faulty and the other team is out-coaching you, or your players aren't following your direction. Either way, it is way too early to think that Gulutzan's job is on the line right now. If the Flames are 30 or 40 games into the season, and well out of a playoff spot while continually having huge defensive lapses or seemingly playing lethargically for stretches every game, then yes, I think at that point you start THINKING about making a coaching change. I do think with having Darryl Sutter still out there, it makes it more tempting (though who knows what he wants right now), but this is just way too early and the Flames have not been playing poorly enough to warrant that talk.

I do think that there are just too many guys playing out of sorts right now. I love Backlund's game, but he hasn't been as effective (or as consistently effective) as he normally is. Hamilton as already mentioned, Bennett has zero confidence, and the bottom 6 are not creating enough (with the exception of Brouwer - I think he is doing MUCH better out there regularly now).

Sky is not falling. Adjustments need to be made. Will be nice to see Jankowski get some games in if Jagr is out for any time at all.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Dion

God forbid anyone here criticise the Flames for the way they play. Lets blow sunshine up their arses and ignore the mistakes they have been making...

That's fine, but I think criticism is more than warranted for those who are ready to smash their televisions, fire the coaching staff, and trade away one of the team's most promising young players. There is justifiable criticism, but a number of posts have exhibited little more than unhinged rage. It's game #8 and the team is .500. They have not played overly well, but are also far from a disaster.

They look like they will probably be okay.

[Torchdemall]

Originally Posted by Dion

God forbid anyone here criticise the Flames for the way they play. Lets blow sunshine up their arses and ignore the mistakes they have been making.

In fact you might want to send that message to the coaching staff who have also been critical of the teams play and comparing it to the start of last season. Players make mistakes, get criticised for it and learn from it.

Don't fall off that high horse you're on.

Ya the same coaches people are calling to be fired, but wait... aren't they clueless?

Some seriously over the top statements by people in the GT and PGT acting like this was a total blow out or an effort like we saw against Carolina. Now that was a game to get worked up at piss poor effort over, but this game wasn't anything close to that.

There are also plenty of well reasoned critiques of the game in this thread and obviously my post was not aimed at those, but I find the fair weather types annoying because they is no rhyme to their reason they are simply venting irrationally and picking one or two things to focus on, which is sad because there is a lot more to the game.

It's just sad because that sort of nonsense tends to drown out the good commentary that is enjoyable to read.

[Nsd1]

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

He's got really bad hockey IQ. Starting to believe Mcdavid carried him all those years. He is clueless when he has the puck. He needs to just go to the net and stop trying to skate with the puck so much. Less=more.

When did McDavid carry Bennett?

[81MC]

I missed the game, but I love Monahans goal celebration. Small action, acts like he's scored before, and embraces his team mates. Honestly, it's much more impressive than these goofballs who skate around and scoop or pump like they've scored in game 7.
Keep it up Monny, you're dope.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Nsd1

When did McDavid carry Bennett?

Back when they played for the Marlboros Minor Midgets when they were 14 duh.

[calgaryblood]

Originally Posted by Nsd1

When did McDavid carry Bennett?

They were teammates for 8 years while Bennett played on his left wing than they played together again for team canada.