Burke interviewed in Toronto Star

[SeanCharles]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Keenan. Loved his freewheeling, not giving a #### attitude about systems or powerplays or anything else besides deploying his best players to win.

Also, 13 playoff games in 2 seasons behind the bench with a rotten core of players. Somehow managed to turn David Moss into a 20 goal scorer.

Wish the 08/09 team wasn't so banged up. They could have made some noise if healthy.

Hartley is probably a much better coach for the youth though.

I agree with you. Reghr, Gio and Phanuef were all injured Sarich was our defacto top dman (and if I remember correctly he played amazing with a broken foot - so he was injured too haha).

If we didnt have so many injuries in the first round, especially to key dmen, I think we could have knocked off the Blackhawks... I remember we were outplaying them but they always came out on top.

I consider that team the best one assembled since the early 90's but bad luck with injuries killed us.. and bad Bertuzzi penalties haha

[stemit14]

Originally Posted by SeanCharles

I agree with you. Reghr, Gio and Phanuef were all injured Sarich was our defacto top dman (and if I remember correctly he played amazing with a broken foot - so he was injured too haha).

If we didnt have so many injuries in the first round, especially to key dmen, I think we could have knocked off the Blackhawks... I remember we were outplaying them but they always came out on top.

I consider that team the best one assembled since the early 90's but bad luck with injuries killed us.. and bad Bertuzzi penalties haha

I also agree with this view of that season. It was the first time that the flames had real scoring depth. I remember the moment it all started to slide for the flames. It was late January I believe and the flames were like 3 points back of Detroit for the top spot in the NHL... Not just the division or the conference... In the whole NHL!

Then, in the span of 2 weeks, the flames lost regehr, sarich, gio, langkow, Bourque, glencross, and bertuzzi. That was their whole scoring depth gone in a few games. They couldn't get fully healthy the rest of the year and started slipping in the standings. Instead of facing St. Louis or Minnesota or LA in the first round with home ice advantage, they faced the hawks. Plus the hawks won a game with blatant goalie interference on kipper in OT and I remember the non-seamless stantions at Chicago's arena costing the flames a goal after a funny bounce off the glass on a clearing attempt.

Sutter ignored how good the flames were in every statistical category before the injuries started to mount and instead focused on how many goals were allowed during the last half of the season. He basically decided to focus only on getting better defensively in the offseason... Hence the signing of Jaybow and sutter as coach. The flames top line for the first half of the next season was iggy, jokinen, and lundmark... And everybody freaked out when iginla only scored 32 goals that 2009-2010 season. :|

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by SeanCharles

I agree with you. Reghr, Gio and Phanuef were all injured Sarich was our defacto top dman (and if I remember correctly he played amazing with a broken foot - so he was injured too haha).

If we didnt have so many injuries in the first round, especially to key dmen, I think we could have knocked off the Blackhawks... I remember we were outplaying them but they always came out on top.

I consider that team the best one assembled since the early 90's but bad luck with injuries killed us.. and bad Bertuzzi penalties haha

I disagree. The whole issue with the Keenan era was how inconsistent they were from game to game. Awesome record at home, crap on the road. Going something like 50 PPs in a row without a goal. Pound a team into submission for the first 20 minutes, play flat for the rest of the game until there was 2 minutes left. Beat the best teams in the league one night, then lose games to bottom feeders due to lack of effort. Flames might have had decent depth considering they were 9th in GF, but they were also 22nd in GA for a differential of +6. No where near good enough to contend. No way that team would have made noise, even if healthy.

Yes injuries might have played a role, but the #1 issue since the '05 lockout was consistency until basically this season.

[Vinny01]

The bad home-away record was the year Playfair coached.

The second year under Keenan was far better than the first with huge injuries derailing a season where Calgary was considered part of the western elite. They got smoked by the Sharks 9-1 then were an amazing team until the started losing bodies. Bourque, Gio, Regehr, Phanuef, Sarich, Langkow, Bertuzzi were all hurt or playing hurt down the stretch.

[Vulcan]

IIRC some of our injuries came after the last 15 games so we couldn't put them on IR. This led us to dressing only 15 or 16 players for games as we didn't have the cap room without players going on IR.