Howse and Horak only had one game together this year, and it was a game that everyone said that Howse look dangerous in...so fingers crossed he gets the O'fer off his back and lets everyone see that million dollar release he has.
To further pile onto the Heat's awful play since 2012 rolled in: Brian Connelly left in the 2nd period. When asked about Connelly's status after the game, Ward replied with "I'm not a trainer"
To further pile onto the Heat's awful play since 2012 rolled in: Brian Connelly left in the 2nd period. When asked about Connelly's status after the game, Ward replied with "I'm not a trainer"
I saw that interview as well. Not sure about the attitude!! I didn't notice Connelly get injured. Hopefully we get some information soon on his situation.
To further pile onto the Heat's awful play since 2012 rolled in: Brian Connelly left in the 2nd period. When asked about Connelly's status after the game, Ward replied with "I'm not a trainer"
I start to believe that I am cursed - all my favourite sports teams seem to suffer a lot of injuries this season. It's gotten to point where it is simply ridiculous ...
I start to believe that I am cursed - all my favourite sports teams seem to suffer a lot of injuries this season. It's gotten to point where it is simply ridiculous ...
Apparently Connelly has a shouder injury but it is supposedly not too serious so perhaps only out for a few games at most. Should know more soon.
The city and the Heat have an option to review their 10-year deal at the halfway point. While that is still two years away, both sides indicated it may need some minor “tweaking” but at this time, no major changes are expected.
The whole game was fun to watch tonight. The two new guys, Jessiman and Escolet, really came through for them tonight. The Heat won 3-2 with goals from Jessiman (assists from Escolet and Walter), Walter (assists from Henry and Escolet), and Nemisz (assist from Sylvester).
The Good:
- Jessiman is a beast of a guy. He really utilizes his size, which creates space for him to work down low. His strengths are definitely in front of and around the net, which is exactly where he scored his goal from a nice pass from Escolet. Consider me impressed with this pick up by the Heat.
- Escolet impressed the hell out of me tonight. He's fast, agile, smart, isn't afraid to hit and has an excellent work ethic. I guess to make a comparison, I would say a Carter Bancks/Blair Jones type of player with a bit more skill. He's a got a wicked wrister, which is very accurate. In fact, that whole first line of Escolet-Walter-Jessiman was quite impressive tonight.
- From what I understand, Nemisz worked heavily on his legs with the Heat conditioning coach while he was hurt and he said he was feeling better than he's ever felt before in terms of his leg work. He wasn't kidding. I've never seen Nemisz quicker than I did tonight. I think his injury may have been a bit of a blessing in disguise.
- I liked the looks of the Sylvester-Nemisz-Bancks line. Lots of skill, spent most of their time on the ice in the opposing zone.
- Howse looked great tonight. He's not the one-dimensional offensive forward we all thought. Boy, is he good at backchecking and reading the play. I know of one instance where he saved the tying goal because of he backchecked a Houston shooter who had a completely open net to shoot at. Other than that, he had a couple of good chances tonight. He was also very physical. Unfortunately, he had to play on a line with Laing and Desbiens all night. You can tell that all of the hard work and dedication Howse put in at the beginning of the year has definitely came back to help his cause in raising his stock in this organization. Overall, he's a lot of fun to watch.
- Not much to say about the defense tonight. As a whole group, they played well.
The Bad:
- Piskula and Henry weren't very good tonight. In Piskula's case, it was just an off night for him. He wasn't making good reads and his passes was just a bit off. In terms of Henry, I feel like a broken record complaining about him, but it's so hard not to notice. Henry, in my opinion, just isn't a smart player. I don't know if it's just him having a weird, unconventional style of play or what, but it's not working. Bad reads, bad passes, bad coverage (as usual), and he ices the puck on plays that seemingly shouldn't be iced.
- I don't know what it is with Desbiens, but he just needs to do what he did in Manitoba, which is put in a crazy amount of effort every night. He's just so damn slow, which is to be expected because of his size, but his lack of speed hurts his linemates. It almost seems they have to slow down because of him. Plus, he makes some really dumb plays. I don't know, I don't really want him back on the Heat. If he comes back, it's simply because of his leadership qualities.
- I would like some feedback on this one. Does Karlsson always seem disinterested in the game? Why I say this is because he's a really frustrating goalie to watch. There's no doubt he's a competitive guy, but everything about him on the ice seems like he's in slow motion. His actions seem delayed. It takes him longer than a normal goalie to cover the puck. He lets out a ridiculous amount of unnecessary rebounds. I don't know, it just seems to me like he thinks he's better than this league; like he knows he's guaranteed to go back to Calgary, so he doesn't care if he wins or loses. To me, it seems like he takes this conditioning stint JUST as a conditioning stint and doesn't care about winning the Heat some games. I could be wrong, but everything he does on the ice makes me think that. All in all, I hope he's traded and Irving has more than proven he can be a phenomenal backup at the very least.
Great game. I had alot of fun. Good sized crowd that was nice and loud tonight, which is nice to see because it doesn't happen often.
EDIT - I also forgot to mention that Ward shortened the bench by not playing the fourth line (Aliu, P3L, Patterson) for the whole 3rd period. He said in his post game interview it was because he wanted to keep the tempo up for the rest of the game.
Last edited by Pierre "Monster" McGuire; 02-18-2012 at 12:38 AM.
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Karlsson was very happy about winning so I feel he is interested. Also the fourth line was benched but I believe they switched up the lines as Patterson played in the third and I thought he did good job. I know Aliu and LeBlonde sat but not sure who else....think maybe it was Howse. I wonder if he might have been hurt.
- I would like some feedback on this one. Does Karlsson always seem disinterested in the game? Why I say this is because he's a really frustrating goalie to watch. There's no doubt he's a competitive guy, but everything about him on the ice seems like he's in slow motion. His actions seem delayed. It takes him longer than a normal goalie to cover the puck. He lets out a ridiculous amount of unnecessary rebounds. I don't know, it just seems to me like he thinks he's better than this league; like he knows he's guaranteed to go back to Calgary, so he doesn't care if he wins or loses. To me, it seems like he takes this conditioning stint JUST as a conditioning stint and doesn't care about winning the Heat some games. I could be wrong, but everything he does on the ice makes me think that. All in all, I hope he's traded and Irving has more than proven he can be a phenomenal backup at the very least.
I think what you're seeing is his lack of agility. Karlsson is not a fast goalie like Irving or Kiprusoff. He's slow and very positional. It's very much like watching Luongo.
I think what you're seeing is his lack of agility. Karlsson is not a fast goalie like Irving or Kiprusoff. He's slow and very positional. It's very much like watching Luongo.
Good point. Too used to watching Kipper and Irving, and then watching Karlsson is pretty frustrating.
That's exactly the way he plays, like Luongo.
On top of that, he deliberately makes himself as small as he can and I don't see why.
Last night was amazing for all Flames fans - Flames win 1-0 in L.A.; Bärtschi and Ferland had great games and the Heat got back-to-back home wins over Houston. Very important for the Heat - after the rough stretch it is now important to rack up points for the playoff hunt.
So happy for Howse to finally score. Hopefully the goals will continue to come now that the first is out of the way.
Jessiman and Estoclet seem like great additions to the team. Especially impressed with the addition of Estoclet ... didn't know the guy beforehand, but he seems to have instant chemistry with Walter and Jessiman. 4 assists over the last 2 games.
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Time for some of my special brand of Heat negativity/QC bitterness:
A couple quotes I dug out of old threads:
Quote:
Originally Posted by spuzzum
Since I live in Abbotsford, I think this is the best news I've heard for a long long time. The arena fits 7,500 and I am sure it will be full. It will be awesome when the Manitoba Moose come to town. There is very little excitement in this town, it is a common complaint. Trust me, this city will fill that arena if the pricing is done right.
Quote:
Sweeting said he is expecting somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 season ticket-holders by summer's end, with "well over" one 1,000 season tickets already sold.
This year's average attendance is 3484, last year's was 3807.Year before that was 3897. Not exactly a promising trend. They did make it longer than Omaha and QC's 2 year stints though...
Digging back through the old threads made me realize how much I miss having AAA level hockey here. Just having teams from cities like Milwaukee and San Antonio playing against our team felt good, and seeing players I saw here in the QC playing on TV for the flames after getting called up was awesome. Now we have the IHL, which is a long long way below the AHL, even to this amateur hockey fan. Yes, I'm bitter.
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Heat are already up 2-0 after 10 minutes in an away game at Peoria (against former Flames prospects Brennan Evans and Adam Cracknell BTW ). The goals were scored by Walter from Martin and Estoclet; and Aliu from Howse. Danny Taylor in net. Martin and Howse both got their first assists of the season.
Last edited by devo22; 02-21-2012 at 06:34 PM.
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