[PGT] Flames show up 50 minutes late, lose 3-2 to Montreal

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by VANFLAMESFAN

So 25-15-6. They're 18-15-3 right now. I really don't see what they need to do to be all that inconceivable. Especially given how their defensive game has turned around. Now if Smith were stealing games left, right and center, I would agree with the masses here.

historically, you would find it's much more difficult than it appears.

[Wiggum_PI]

Gulutzan said before the season started, that he believes this is a 100 point team. I really don't see it, this is fringe wildcard team if anything, no better than Hartley's Flames.

[killer_carlson]

I think Hartley gets too much grief for the style of play.

He had a very limited roster and developed a style of play to squeeze what talent he could out of them.

I'd love to see how Hartley could have inspired a team with this much individual talent.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

I think Hartley gets too much grief for the style of play.

He had a very limited roster and developed a style of play to squeeze what talent he could out of them.

I'd love to see how Hartley could have inspired a team with this much individual talent.

Yeah, I still don't agree with them letting him go when they did. No coach is going to have success when you have goaltending as horrible as the Flames did his last season.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

I think Hartley gets too much grief for the style of play.

He had a very limited roster and developed a style of play to squeeze what talent he could out of them.

I'd love to see how Hartley could have inspired a team with this much individual talent.

Originally Posted by Inferno

Yeah, I still don't agree with them letting him go when they did. No coach is going to have success when you have goaltending as horrible as the Flames did his last season.

I'm not sure how much more he needed, they even gave him three goalies to start the season.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Another thing, isn’t it weird that so many people constantly ragged on Iggy when our D was poor, ragged on Iggy for leadership, ragged on Iggy for effort, ragged on Iggy for everything but Gio gets exactly zero of that criticism?

I’m not saying we should blame him but how crazy is it that he’s basically untouchable? Is it just because he’s a Dman? Why does no one blame him for the lack of effort or lack of buy in to the coaches system (allegedly)? I guarandamntee you that if this was Iggy’s team still we’d be debating the country club atmosphere that he’s responsible for and GG would get way less heat.

Because with Iginla you could argue that he wasn't putting in the effort at the defensive end of the ice - particularly given the feud with Regehr. And if Regehr were captain, one might argue that he'd have been overly defensive, and not put the proper weight on positive-value offensive risk-taking.

This made Giordano an easy choice for captain. He puts in a quality effort both offensively and defensively, with neither taking away from the other. He's leading by example, and if the horses aren't drinking the water he leads them to, then that's on them.

Furthermore, with this version of the Flames, it seems to me that the problem is not what they do under the system, it's what they don't. Are they not scoring powerplay goals because they're not doing what they're supposed to? Or is that doing what they're told doesn't work?

[NiklasSundblad]

Originally Posted by Inferno

Yeah, I still don't agree with them letting him go when they did. No coach is going to have success when you have goaltending as horrible as the Flames did his last season.

The timing of the firing made me assume that the sudden availability of Bruce Boudreau forced management into that decision so they could upgrade. 18 months later it makes a lot less sense to me.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Dion

Bullocks!!!! It falls on the players this time. The players knew the importance of finishing strong before the Christmas break.

It would appear that they didn’t.

[N-E-B]

One more complaint: the in-game presentation was bush league tonight. I know it's Christmas time, but did the team really have to take to the ice to cheesy Christmas music? At least make it a heavy metal version or something. Just awful.

There was literally nothing good about this game tonight.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by NiklasSundblad

The timing of the firing made me assume that the sudden availability of Bruce Boudreau forced management into that decision so they could upgrade. 18 months later it makes a lot less sense to me.

Yeah, me too. I was pretty disappointed when he said they never even called him and then ended up hiring a guy like Gulutzan. It felt like a downgrade from day one but I hoped it would work out but it hasn't.

[DeluxeMoustache]

I agree with this. The Flames last 2 coach firings have been bad. Keenan may have had detractors with respect to defensive play but his playoff exit was with a ridiculously injured team. Hartley came off an unexpected overachievement with a jack Adams season to another gong show season with injuries and a 3 headed goalie monster.

Gully has frankly been an expected improvement from a disappointing previous season and now floundering this year. I think he is ok but not a difference maker.

And experimenting with a coach to grow with the team was in my opinion a bad move by the GM, the better move was a guy like Gallant who had proven himself to get a growing team to achieve

[devo22]

frustrating team. They might be a bit better if they only knew that a game lasts 60 minutes and you're allowed to do something in the first 50.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by dieHARDflameZ

Someone please explain to me why 100% of being mentally ready to start a game is on the head coach.

If the players are already mentally on holidays, it doesn’t matter what GG says before the game. The players need to be accountable as well but I get it, it’s easier to blame the coaching staff every season.

I'll say this about the mental preparation:

Yes, the players are accountable for their own mental preparation and they also need to take cues from the coaching staff on how to mentally prepare and what to focus on. They did a great job of this against St. Louis and they knew exactly how they needed to play to beat that team. But whatever worked against the Blues just didn't work at all against the Habs tonight, and it wasn't just a slight drop in play, it was night and day. THAT is what's concerning to me.

It seems to me that Gulutzan and Co. are probably putting together adequate game plans for most opposing teams, and when the Flames are motivated properly and mentally ready, they can be one of the most effective teams in the league and can beat anybody.

The problem is they are just not ready to play about 1/3rd of the time...maybe more often. Now if it was a game here or there, I could live with it, but it's becoming such a common theme with this team under this coaching staff, going back to the beginning of last year. It's beyond frustrating to see a team be so effective against the top competition in the league and play such thorough and complete games, and then turn around 2 nights later and basically not be able to do anything well and take 50 minutes to find their game again. That makes no sense to me. Even if they had a bad first period, the coaches should know what to do at this point to get the team back on track. The fact that they cannot seem to do that means they are not dialed into these player's mental outlook, individual motivations, tendencies etc. They've spent enough time around these players that they should be able to see signs of bad nights early on and make the necessary adjustments quickly to get them back on track within the same period, never mind the same game.

It's one of two things at this point: 1) The players are tuning out the same message over and over again from the coach because it's not delivered in a way that's very effective, or 2) The coaches have zero idea on how to reach these players and it's never going to get any better.

In either scenario, coaching IS the problem. The coach is still responsible for the final results in a season for the entire team, and the players are responsible for their individual performances. On the balance of the season, I'm betting that most players will probably get a passing grade from management, but I doubt the coaching staff will get that same pass. As always, it's easier to fire 1-3 coaches than replace 23 players.

It sucks, because I LOVE the system that Gulutzan gets them to play and I think it's a Stanley Cup contending team using that system....IF he could get them to play somewhat consistently. Being as that he can't seem to do that, the system's effectiveness is lost, so they may as well not be trying to play that system any way.

I'd take an imperfect system, with excellent effort every night over this. I just don't have the patience for this any longer. I'm now reluctantly on the fire Gulutzan bandwagon. I'll give him until the end of the year to figure this out, but if they don't get one of the top 3 spots in the division, he deserves to lose his job.

[Lanny_McDonald]

I agree Cali, this team comes out looking poorly prepared and not motivated on way too many occasions. You can accept a game here or there, but they lack of consistency in this regard is troubling, and that lands squarely on the heads of the coaching staff. It isn't like they got beat by the other team's best players either. They got beat by the other team's slugs. Not acceptable.

[Samonadreau]

This game was a piss off. I don't even get too bent out of shape any more when this happens. It's like groundhog day - play a couple really good games and then lay a stinker, not just lose but play God awful. I give the team a few games after christmas to show that this game was actually a one off on there recent better play but the season realy is hanging in the balance here and if consistency and the PP cant show up more often changes are required.

I still have Jan 25 circled on the calender. If we lay another egg against the oilers and are still out of a playoff spot by then it's time for a change.

[GranteedEV]

A lot of talk about "effort".... but at the end of the day this was the first time in 11 games the Flames have been outshot in a game. It'd be nice to

a) Not have had that be so predictable by forcing guys like Bartkowski and Brouwer who continue to suck night in and night out onto the roster when better players were available
b) not have had to rely on a proven possession black hole in Stone as the next man up with Hamonic injured (recall, even that Cody Franson was available in UFA and every metric on Earth favoured him except random chance hype)
c) Had Smith steal a game for once. It's been a long time and when you let in the first shot on goal fivehole the team will have zero confidence in you to wheel. Last game he truly stole might have been the Anaheim win. We need a goalie to go on a run as Elliott and Johnson and Ramo and Ortio even Hiller did at different times for us over the last handful years, and I don't think thatis going to happen without benching Smith for a while and maybe firing Sigalet. It's time to ride Rittich for a stretch of games before the season and that first round pick are pissed away.
Smith needs to be able to pitch an occasional shutout for us and there hasn't been a game in the last ten or so where he hasn't let in a goal he wants back. There have been games (not last night) where the team has played well enough to get him the shutout and lost 2-1.

It's not that this team lacks depth, it's that they refuse to use it out of a stubbornness borne from management's arrogance and extreme conservatism.

Move Kulak up the lineup instead of Stone - Brett is the better player on the bottom pair anyways, and you are moving Brodie back to his better side (which is also where/how he set up the Ferland goal last night and the Hamilton goal the night before).

Send Bartkowski to Stockton where he belongs and call up Wotherspoon to be the #7. Roll a WotherStone 3rd pair. If they don't work try Wotherspoon-Andersson.. not like they're not the best D pair in the entire AHL...don't let this misguided pro-Stone sentiment derail a season.

Send Familton, Brouwer, and Lazar to Stockton. Let Mangiapane, Poirier, Klimchuk, Hrivik, Lomberg prove they can't play... the first three have already proven it.

And run with Rittich until he falls flat on his face.

[socalwingfan]

The GWG was all on Stone. 3 incredibly lazy plays in the span of 10 seconds - just awful

[bubbsy]

Originally Posted by Wiggum_PI

Gulutzan said before the season started, that he believes this is a 100 point team. I really don't see it, this is fringe wildcard team if anything, no better than Hartley's Flames.

Both the gm and the coach should have to answer why this team is a fringe bubble team despite throwing away first and second round picks to shape the roster.

All I kept thinking last night was why, other than the 3rd line, why were 90% of the flames breakouts out of their own zone made to a stationary, or a skating back towards their own zone, forward.

I frigin hate how we have dmen who can move the puck well, yet instead of quick transition once they win back the puck, they have to go deeper into their own zone, play d to d catch for a few minutes before looking up ice.

The team is quite boring to watch, as a result, especially when they lose.

As per the effort, it was embarrassing. Not because it happened but the fact that it feels like every other game at home we see the same thing over and over.

I hope the gm is restricted from making any trades this deadline. Not sure he has a handle on what he has on the roster or what coach is required to build a winner.

[locsofblu]

I've come to the conclusion that this team isn't good enough to play well consistently. I seriously have my doubts that we are a playoff team and trading away our first and 2 seconds for an average player at best just reeks of Sutter.

[Travis Munroe]

5 minutes in we could tell who was on Christmas break already. Ferland was flying while Johny and Mony were back home for the holidays. Is it not on the coach to adjust for things like this as soon as you see it and not wait until the game is nearly over? Coincidence that as soon as lines changed, so did the performance?
10 minutes in we couldn’t break out of our own zone as the long pass was beyond predictable yet we kept doing it. Is it not on coaching to adjust in game?