Looks like James Neal will be a healthy scratch and Zack Kassian and Dominik Kahun will come in for #Oilers. Tyson Barrie stayed on late, but not as late as the obvious scratches...so as @EdmontonJack pointed out, Evan Bouchard will play vs. #Flames if he can’t. #BattleOfAlberta
Good. I hope Kassian looks for a piece of Ritchie. He'll get his ass kicked.
Is that Neal’s first instance of a scratching against the Flames? Awesome.
Hopefully Looch pots a couple.
The fact that the Oilers can healthy scratch James Neal and not disrupt the chemistry in the room and upset McDavid and Draisatl proves that the Oilers won this trade.
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Calgary Flames, PLEASE GO TO THE NET! AND SHOOT THE PUCK! GENERATING OFFENSE IS NOT DIFFICULT! SKATE HARD, SHOOT HARD, CRASH THE NET HARD!
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Is that Neal’s first instance of a scratching against the Flames? Awesome.
Hopefully Looch pots a couple.
As would be the case with most people, some revenge on the team that traded you is probably pretty high on the priority list.
As likely as it is that Neil sits at home staring into a mirror listing player names as he puts on lipstick (a la Steve Buscemi), the only place we can see that revenge is on the ice.
Last game the first (and I think only) time his name came up was 'Neil's on a breakaway... and he hit the Zamboni door. -so much for that chance at revenge huh James, next game don't worry.
Next game... James it has been determined that you bring the least amount of value out of the entire active roster, grab a bag of popcorn, you won't be seeing any ice time.
Revenge continues to evade the Real Heel it seems.
Barrie has been pretty good for the Coilers, at least offensively. Defensively it is probably a wash between him and the raw rookie Bouchard lol.
Kahun vs. Neal is meh. Kassian vs. Kharia is a downgrade, Kharia is a moderately useful player while Kassian is a nothing goon that isn’t much of a goon unless he’s fighting well below his weight class.
Hopefully the Flames come out in the first period with the intent of breaking the Coilers spirit. I’d like a St. Patrick’s Day Massacre similar to the Buffalo vs. Oil game that ended 10-2 Buffalo.
Ugly jerseys are the black snot horse ones IMO.
These are ok - the away whites are the nicest.
I get not suspending the guy (too lazy to look up spelling that name) due to the optics of the whole thing. Kind of irks me that he gets off now as a player with "no priors" because of it. Guess he owes Ritchie an ironic thanks.
I get not suspending the guy (too lazy to look up spelling that name) due to the optics of the whole thing. Kind of irks me that he gets off now as a player with "no priors" because of it. Guess he owes Ritchie an ironic thanks.
Even if he had priors, he wouldn’t remember them anymore...
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Ugly jerseys are the black snot horse ones IMO.
These are ok - the away whites are the nicest.
I get not suspending the guy (too lazy to look up spelling that name) due to the optics of the whole thing. Kind of irks me that he gets off now as a player with "no priors" because of it. Guess he owes Ritchie an ironic thanks.
boo urns
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GFG
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I think a lot of teams and their fans are telling themselves that this tough, pain in the ass to play against version of the flames is just the new coach honeymoon, expecting us to revert any game now.
I'm sticking with the narrative of the players finally have a real Coach (1 on 1 development) and the team finally has a real Bench Boss (accountability and structure) and this is who the Flames are now.
Personally I like being the team that makes everyone else think ffs this is gonna suck, when they see us up next on their schedule.
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I think a lot of teams and their fans are telling themselves that this tough, pain in the ass to play against version of the flames is just the new coach honeymoon, expecting us to revert any game now.
I'm sticking with the narrative of the players finally have a real Coach (1 on 1 development) and the team finally has a real Bench Boss (accountability and structure) and this is who the Flames are now.
Personally I like being the team that makes everyone else think ffs this is gonna suck, when they see us up next on their schedule.
Agree.
This team has quickly tuned out coaches before.
But Sutter has a history of teams continually improving with him.
I’m going with the Sutter track record. Which is not to say this team doesn’t need to upgrade its personnel.
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I'm no Barrie fan but he has been great on their PP. And the PP is their only chance of winning. So I welcome Bouchard to the game.
I knew before the season Barrie would pile up points on the power play, so I kind of discount that in my mind. I think his D negates anything he does on the power play, especially if the Flames stay out of the box. That said, Bouchard is a nothin, so that’s all good.
