[PGT] The Flames didn't win

[Toonage]

All the ingredients were there for a loss

- First game after a road trip
- Game at home
- Smith's first game in a month
- That GDT

Tough one to swallow, but it really doesn't move the needle as to what the Flames needed before the game. They had to go 9-4? Well now its 9-3. Not like they were going to go 9-0 and then just drop the last 4 because they could.

Whether you think they have a shot or not, last night didn't really sink anything.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Toonage

All the ingredients were there for a loss

- First game after a road trip
- Game at home
- Smith's first game in a month
- That GDT

Tough one to swallow, but it really doesn't move the needle as to what the Flames needed before the game. They had to go 9-4? Well now its 9-3. Not like they were going to go 9-0 and then just drop the last 4 because they could.

Whether you think they have a shot or not, last night didn't really sink anything.

It may not have sunk anything, but it just made it a lot tougher.

In todays NHL, every team has a chance every night. There are no gimmies.

The Flames were allowed about 4 loses, and that became 3 last night. So, the odds became that much tougher. It moved the needle quite a bit actually.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Why is that??

Every othe top talen in the NHL does it . McDavid, Crosby , Malkin, Taveres.......

Is it because he is a small player? St loius did ..Fluery did.. Gerbe did ..Byron does it .. Gallagher you name namr it another small player has done it.

The one thing that drives me nuts about Gaudreau is the way he shys away from shots and contact . He is pushed of the puck waaayytto easy.

I know its hard to argue his flaws when he racks up points but it is also pretty easy to neutralize him if the team just takes the body instard of trying to match his foot speed.


The point being is no player on a team should be allowed the exception of not blockimg shots or being physical.

I think the point is you don't want your best player to risk getting hurt by needlessly blocking shots.
too much risk.
Gaudreau is by far the teams best player. he shouldn't be the one sacrificing his body in the regular season for a shot block.

let's use McDavid for an example. right before Christmas he blocked a shot and there was worry he broke his foot. the reward for the blocked shot wouldn't have been worth losing McDavid for an extended period of time.

[Rick M.]

Originally Posted by Toonage

All the ingredients were there for a loss

- First game after a road trip
- Game at home
- Smith's first game in a month
- That GDT

Tough one to swallow, but it really doesn't move the needle as to what the Flames needed before the game. They had to go 9-4? Well now its 9-3. Not like they were going to go 9-0 and then just drop the last 4 because they could.

Whether you think they have a shot or not, last night didn't really sink anything.

Losses against bottom feeders mean you have to beat better teams. It doesn’t instill belief in the players.

[Jackpot_Smooth]

I have a feeling they will have another loss tomorrow when the flames do their part to keep edmonton from drafting top 5.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

What job have you ever had that It was not your managers job that you showed up ready to work??

Every job? It is my responsibility to show up ready to work. Like a professional.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Rick M.

Losses against bottom feeders mean you have to beat better teams. It doesn’t instill belief in the players.

Thats independent of my point. Everyone loses to bottom feeders over the course of a year. My point was that they have a seemingly insurmountable task ahead of them that wasn't going to see them get all 9 wins at once. If you think they can achieve this giant task, then that loss wasn't going to make the difference.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Thats independent of my point. Everyone loses to bottom feeders over the course of a year. My point was that they have a seemingly insurmountable task ahead of them that wasn't going to see them get all 9 wins at once. If you think they can achieve this giant task, then that loss wasn't going to make the difference.

Based on that, they could lose the next 3 games and you'd suggest it makes no difference?

Sport Club has their odds of making the playoffs going from about 28% to 17% based on last nights defeat. I see that as quite a difference.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

Based on that, they could lose the next 3 games and you'd suggest it makes no difference?

Sport Club has their odds of making the playoffs going from about 28% to 17% based on last nights defeat. I see that as quite a difference.

No thats not what I'm saying, but I'm not doing a good job making my point so I'll just let it go. Sorry for that.

[Rick M.]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Thats independent of my point. Everyone loses to bottom feeders over the course of a year. My point was that they have a seemingly insurmountable task ahead of them that wasn't going to see them get all 9 wins at once. If you think they can achieve this giant task, then that loss wasn't going to make the difference.

All I’m saying is that losing to bottom feeders when the chips are down has a different meaning from a nothing early season game.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Toonage

All the ingredients were there for a loss

- First game after a road trip
- Game at home
- Smith's first game in a month
- That GDT

Tough one to swallow, but it really doesn't move the needle as to what the Flames needed before the game. They had to go 9-4? Well now its 9-3. Not like they were going to go 9-0 and then just drop the last 4 because they could.

Whether you think they have a shot or not, last night didn't really sink anything.

I would say the difference between having to go 8-4 vs. 9-3 is rather significant.

[Rubicant]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I would say the difference between having to go 8-4 vs. 9-3 is rather significant.

Yep... winning 2 out of 3 vs 3 out of 4.

Of course winning games earlier in the season would have gone a long way too, but this one hurts.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Why is that??

Every othe top talen in the NHL does it . McDavid, Crosby , Malkin, Taveres.......

Is it because he is a small player? St loius did ..Fluery did.. Gerbe did ..Byron does it .. Gallagher you name namr it another small player has done it.

The one thing that drives me nuts about Gaudreau is the way he shys away from shots and contact . He is pushed of the puck waaayytto easy.

I know its hard to argue his flaws when he racks up points but it is also pretty easy to neutralize him if the team just takes the body instard of trying to match his foot speed.


The point being is no player on a team should be allowed the exception of not blockimg shots or being physical.

Every player on the team should be expected to put in maximum effort. But expecting Gaudreau to be physical and blocking shots accomplishes nothing IMO. That is not his game, and I'm not sure other similar elite talents are playing that way. And as much as I love Gaudreau, he is not in the Crosby, McDavid category and if the team needs him to play as well as those guys to win, then we are doomed to eternal disappointment.

I am generally happy with Gaudreau's compete level and I see a player that hates to lose. Yes he can be moved off the puck rather easily when someone can get close to him, but it would help to keep our expectations to check. Last I looked, he was about the 40th highest paid player in the league.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Every job? It is my responsibility to show up ready to work. Like a professional.

Silly talk. Employee engagement and motivation is a big part of all work places. And for a good reason, unless you want people to do just enough to not get fired.
It's only magnified 100 fold when you manage a bunch of spoiled millionaires on guaranteed contracts. It is a lot harder than just telling them to suck it up and be professionals.
Coach GG appears to be a very mellow person. His system is in some ways unconventional and he has no results to back it up and sell it to the players. All things considered, it's probably tough for the guys to go out there with any drive and confidence.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Red

Silly talk. Employee engagement and motivation is a big part of all work places. And for a good reason, unless you want people to do just enough to not get fired.
It's only magnified 100 fold when you manage a bunch of spoiled millionaires on guaranteed contracts. It is a lot harder than just telling them to suck it up and be professionals.
Coach GG appears to be a very mellow person. His system is in some ways unconventional and he has no results to back it up and sell it to the players. All things considered, it's probably tough for the guys to go out there with any drive and confidence.

No offense but bull.
People are motivated short-term by traditional carrot/stick methodologies but in the long-term they are motivated by deeper items

Autonomy
Purpose
Mastery

And a lot of that comes from within and then a manager taps into it understanding what motivates specific individuals. We can debate how effective GG is at that, but I would say we have little to no insight on that.

These guys should be going out there with drive largely for self-motivation reasons. They have all sorts of reasons why they should "go out there with drive and confidence". If they can find those within themselves we have the wrong guys.

But to go back to my point, if I don't show up ready to work, I get fired. My manager isn't going to put a lot of time to try and motivate me. He's going to fire me.

[dieHARDflameZ]

Originally Posted by Red

Silly talk. Employee engagement and motivation is a big part of all work places. And for a good reason, unless you want people to do just enough to not get fired.
It's only magnified 100 fold when you manage a bunch of spoiled millionaires on guaranteed contracts. It is a lot harder than just telling them to suck it up and be professionals.
Coach GG appears to be a very mellow person. His system is in some ways unconventional and he has no results to back it up and sell it to the players. All things considered, it's probably tough for the guys to go out there with any drive and confidence.

If that’s the case than you can fire every one of them off into the sun. I’m sick and tired of people consistently making excuses for the players.

Giordano, Tkachuk and Smith consistently show up ready to play, why is it the others can’t seem to get it together? Blaming the coach for the players not being ready to play is just another pathetic attempt to absolve accountability from the ones actually on the ice playing the game.

Do I like Gulutzan? I think he’s very average. If a Quenneville or Vigneault becomes available, I think you move heaven and earth to get one of them as they’re elite coaches.

However, I’m sorry, these guys are paid professionals, it shouldn’t be up to a coach to get them up for a game. They know what’s at stake and where they are in the standings. Quite frankly there’s just too many passengers that appear to not give two ****s about winning.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

No offense but bull.
People are motivated short-term by traditional carrot/stick methodologies but in the long-term they are motivated by deeper items

Autonomy
Purpose
Mastery

And a lot of that comes from within and then a manager taps into it understanding what motivates specific individuals

These guys should be going out there with drive largely for self-motivation reasons. They have all sorts of reasons why they should "go out there with drive and confidence". If they can find those within themselves we have the wrong guys.

But to go back to my point, if I don't show up ready to work, I get fired. My manager isn't going to put a lot of time to try and motivate me. He's going to fire me.

To be fair, weren't there numerous reports that Gulutzan lost the Dallas Stars room for the same reasons before he was fired? Veterans tuned him out. Super nice guy but just a terrible in game manager and non-existent motivator.

I think some people inherently need to be motivated with a kick in the butt as opposed to mastery, purpose etc as you say. Based on this team's slow slide into oblivion, it really does seem like this staff is just way out of touch with the needs of the team.

[Monahammer]

Really hope Tkachuk is ok. He is one of our most important pieces moving forward, his health is more important than playoffs this season.

I am excited to see what this team looks like in the post-gulutzan era. Similar to the story above about getting kids hooked, I had started getting my now fiance into hockey three years ago, during the heart-attack kids year. She grew up in Edmonton but never really got into the NHL product (she's a keeper) and fell in love with the exitement and energy the flames brought to every game that year. She even bought a johnny jersey.

Last season she only made it about 20 games through before she identified how boring they had gotten and how uninspired they looked. I tried really hard to get her back interested during the winning streak and up to playoffs, but she still just didn't find the games fun. She now schedules other activities purposely during game time.

Now some of this is definitely the ol' magic wearing off, but some is definitely the style of play. If we're not inspired by it, the players must have a hard time feeling driven by it too. Time to bring in a fresh look!

[GranteedEV]

To quote a character on a pretty bad TV show:

“There are only four rules you need to remember. Make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to get off the rail … Throw away the plan,”

This team's issue under Gulutzan is that very last part. The Flames didn't show up "unmotivated" last night... they got scored on by two deflected point shots, a poorly covered shift by our so-called number one centre, and an awfully placed rebound by our goaltender.

Fine, #### happens. But it'd be nice to read game context and throw away the plan instead of hoping for bounces to miraculously start going your way. Even the same results might be a lot more watchable with a shift in tempo or a second wave of offense from the backend, or throwing different lines, or trying a different goaltender just to spark the skaters.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by combustiblefuel

Why is that??

Every othe top talen in the NHL does it . McDavid, Crosby , Malkin, Taveres.......

Is it because he is a small player? St loius did ..Fluery did.. Gerbe did ..Byron does it .. Gallagher you name namr it another small player has done it.

The one thing that drives me nuts about Gaudreau is the way he shys away from shots and contact . He is pushed of the puck waaayytto easy.

I know its hard to argue his flaws when he racks up points but it is also pretty easy to neutralize him if the team just takes the body instard of trying to match his foot speed.


The point being is no player on a team should be allowed the exception of not blockimg shots or being physical.

Gaudreau does more than his part to help the team win. Him being physical is just wasted energy. When he figures in points wise on 29 of the team's 34 wins, it's because they basically can't win without him. If he injures himself attempting a hit or blocking a shot would just be plain stupid. We'd be a bottom feeder without him.