[PGT] Flames lose 2-1 in OT to Bruins

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle

This team was so far away from being a contender 4 years ago and propelled its self to a spot where playoffs are a possibility and that you feel like anything less than being a consistent contender is a failure so much faster than would have ever been expected then.

When do you expect this team to be a contender?

[PlayfulGenius]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Not going to make this about Feaster, but if Flames don't take a flyer on Gaudreau in the 4th round this rebuild would be not pretty.

Impossible to say... w/o JD, they may have drafted Eichel, Laine or Matthews... who knows

[Calgary4LIfe]

Meh.. I liked this game a lot better than the last one in Boston.

I thought that Boston was once again schooling them all over the ice. I didn't think it was even close.

2nd period comes around, and I thought that the Flames matched them well. Stopped getting out-competed. Stopped losing all the races to the puck and all the one-on-one battles. Started making solid plays. I thought it was a closely contested 2nd and 3rd period, and no team really 'deserved' to lose this one.

Boston is the league's top road team, and they were running hot. They got beat in Vancouver and I am sure they came ready to play this afternoon. They have been playing like an elite team for a long while. I would have been angry had the Flames played like they did in Boston all game. From the 2nd period on, they played well.

I am not happy about where they are in the standings. Simply being tied with Anaheim right now is incredibly disappointing to me given what Anaheim has been through this year. They are making a race for the playoffs rather than comfortably sitting in a playoff spot. This is a fairly weak division after all.

Hopefully they start to string together some wins at home. They did play well. Rittich played well. I didn't think anyone had a bad game (including Brodie). They came up against one of the stronger teams in the league who have a lot of veterans that know how to win. Sometimes you lose even if you play well. I will put my pitchfork down for now. They play in Vegas next, then a home-and-home with Colorado, then Phoenix and then NYR. I will pick up my pitchfork again if they have a losing record from the next 5 games. They have a really good opportunity to get themselves in the playoffs here.

[jonkaupp]

What Boston’s retooling really shows me is that the Flames have a lot of time to get this thing figured out in upcoming seasons. They just retooled around their core of Bergeron (32), Marchand (30), Chara (40!), Krejci (31), And Raask (31). Compare that to our core of Gaudreau (24), Monahan (23), Hamilton (24), Tkachuk (20).... well basically we have a lot of time on our side. The big thing is finding a goalie to go along with that core (hopefully Rittich is the real deal!) and then adding good support. If one of Bennett or jankowski could break out it’d make a big difference I think. This team certainly needs to make the next step but everyone talking about this 3 year window... I don’t get it personally. Or acting like whatever results we get this season are absolutely indicative of what this group of players can do.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I guess you're not counting the upcoming draft either.

Bruins have all of their draft picks for the next 3 years save this year's 4th.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Dumping Bob and bringing in a relatively inexperienced coaching staff was a gamble, but given nearly two seasons where it feels like we're on a plateau of just putting along hovering around the bubble, working towards, well I don't know what, exactly? It's pretty clear to me that some key ingredient is missing, because these kids are still growing, or should be, yet the on ice product as a whole isn't progressing. I don't think this coaching staff has that veteran experience/savvy to know how to push these guys to the next level.

The Flames are hovering around the bubble because this coaching staff can't gameplan to beat the Oilers. They STILL haven't done it even once in seven tries. Taking points from the chump teams would have them much closer to Vegas and the frustration wouldn't be so high.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

The Flames are hovering around the bubble because this coaching staff can't gameplan to beat the Oilers. They STILL haven't done it even once in seven tries. Taking points from the chump teams would have them much closer to Vegas and the frustration wouldn't be so high.

We’ve only played the Oilers 3 times this seaaon and we’ve picked up 1 of 6 points. Even if we won out, we wouldn’t be close to the Knights, we’d be closer to the Sharks. The real reason why we aren’t better is because we can’t score enough. We’re one of the lowest goal scoring teams in playoff contention and most of our offense is generated from 1 player/1 line. It’s the Iggy era all over again with 1 scoring line and all world goaltending.

[bubbsy]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle

Holly crap, the Flames fan pity party, 2017-18 season post mortem, why our window is going to close on this core with no success post mortem is just at another level today.

0 patience from many for this young core to actually develop and 0 patience for this management to take the time needed to find and get all the pieces needed to compliment the core. And all of the unreasonableness being justified because of apparent decades of hard ship (which wether true or not, has 0 bearing on what's going on now) cheering for this team.

Painful. So much more painful then anything I've seen on the ice this year.

Respect your opinion, and wish I was as patient.

That being said, is this really a fan expectation problem?

The gm predicted this team was a hamonic away from taking the next step to a contender. The coach openly stated this should be a 100pt team.

This team is right in the bubble. Other than goaltending, Gaudreau, and the progression of tkatchuk, the rest of the team has been pretty meh.

We desperately need a 2nd line. On a playoff and cup contending team, tkatchuk is the only guy still on the 2nd line. Backlund/Frolik make up an excellent 3rd line. And take your favourite current bottom 6 to form your 4th line.

Our strength used to be offense from the defence, that has disappeared. This team doesn't play any kind of quick transition game, and prefer a controlled break out, which eliminates a lot of off-the-rush type offence. I blame the coaches for the lack of effectiveness of the offense from the d. Brodie is a great dman on the rush, he's not a good defensive player, nor is he a strong point dman in ur traditional 'halfcourt' offence. So while he could be extremely valuable in the 'new nhl' he's of no value to the flames or their system.

This team has a gap in the way it's been constructed (personnel) and how it's coached. I sure hope it's a quiet deadline for the flames, so they can take a look on which to change in the offseason, after the inevitable early exit or missing the playoffs altogether.....

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by PlayfulGenius

Impossible to say... w/o JD, they may have drafted Eichel, Laine or Matthews... who knows

JG? I’m not assuming any butterfly effect. Point is, hitting on Gaudreau accelerated improvement of this team and they would be bad without him.

[nemanja2306]

Sam Bennett busting has really set this team back.

If he had become at least as good as Draisaitl (for example), the team would be really dangerous.

You could have Gaudreau and Monahan on one line, Tkachuk and Bennett on the second line and Frolik and Backlund on line three. No problem scoring, IMO.

To make the problem worse we also hired an incompetent coach, so that doesn't help for sure. With lack of picks in the upcoming drafts, things could get really gloomy for the Flames, especially since I don't think the core will get much better.

[Yoho]

One of the best things from this season is finding out Rittich is the real deal.
This will be big moving forward.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Yoho

One of the best things from this season is finding out Rittich is the real deal.
This will be big moving forward.

The fact that he's also 25 gives me confidence, since goalies don't usually start getting good until their mid-to-late 20's.

Then you add in that we have Tyler Parsons in the wing,and Jon Gillies still possibly being able to carve a career (but more likely as a backup at this point).

Calgary has a strong system to roll with after Mike Smith leaves the team.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

.500 team. I can't remember a Flame that's been instrumental in so many losses like Brodie has this season. Something has to be done. I could handle seeing him with a new coaching staff but if Gulutzan is back Brodie needs to go.

I think blaming it on the coaching staff is unfair. Like them or not, they are not the ones making idiotic puck plays leading to turnovers and goals. The only thing you can pin on them in this case would be continuing to use him in pivotal moments when he has shown time and time again the same penchant for wilting.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

I think blaming it on the coaching staff is unfair. Like them or not, they are not the ones making idiotic puck plays leading to turnovers and goals. The only thing you can pin on them in this case would be continuing to use him in pivotal moments when he has shown time and time again the same penchant for wilting.

Why?

Brodie is clearly better on his off-side, yet will never be put back on the right. The Flames are well past attempting to salvage the guy by trying this. Brodie will hopefully last longer as a Flame than this coaching staff does.

Also, everyone and their dog knows he's got a muffin from the point, but how long was he deployed there on the powerplay?

If this team pulls a Greg Gilbert on any of these players and they show immediate improvement after being traded for junk, it's going to be a sad day.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by nemanja2306

Sam Bennett busting has really set this team back.

If he had become at least as good as Draisaitl (for example), the team would be really dangerous.

You could have Gaudreau and Monahan on one line, Tkachuk and Bennett on the second line and Frolik and Backlund on line three. No problem scoring, IMO.

To make the problem worse we also hired an incompetent coach, so that doesn't help for sure. With lack of picks in the upcoming drafts, things could get really gloomy for the Flames, especially since I don't think the core will get much better.

Sam Bennett is not a bust, no matter how many times people say it.

Your lack of patience with player development does not make a player a bust.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

We’ve only played the Oilers 3 times this seaaon and we’ve picked up 1 of 6 points. Even if we won out, we wouldn’t be close to the Knights, we’d be closer to the Sharks.

Odd way to look at it are you purposely downplaying losing to the Oilers? Win those 3 games and we are sitting pretty in a playoff position 2 points up on the Sharks. In this division every point matters the difference between 5th and 2nd is 3 points.

[Royle9]

Dave Cameron on why the flames home record is seemingly so bad per the fan960 this morning:

"I'm not sure, if I knew the answer to that I'd be a millionaire"

That's the kind of answer I like to see from our special teams coach who took 3/4 of the season before rolling lines that actually made sense and got us a few goals in the last week.

[Toonage]

I think its safe to say that Mr. Cameron won't be employed with this team next season regardless of their finish this year. Even if they make the playoffs some changes are coming to this coaching staff.

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by Royle9

Dave Cameron on why the flames home record is seemingly so bad per the fan960 this morning:

"I'm not sure, if I knew the answer to that I'd be a millionaire"

Absolutely pathetic. If that's the attitude, it's no wonder this team has such a leadership void.

[zamler]

Where can I get a high paying job where I suck at it and still stay employed. And when people ask me why the company is doing so poorly I can get away with saying, well how should I know.