[PGT] Flames win 6-2 in Vancouver!

[Gaskal]

Originally Posted by Beatle17

I never really noticed before tonight but Stone is very efficient at stapling a guy to the boards and helping break up a cycle.

He has this way of combining a hook, a hold, a crosscheck and a slew foot into one motion so that the player getting their face shoved into the glass are probably all wondering how he's not getting called on any of them.

It's fantastic

[Galakanokis]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

The truth of it is that I am a painfully average speller, and an extremely poor typer. It's the best I can do with my index and middle fingers, with very occasional contributions from my fat-ass thumbs.

I don't care what they say about you Text, I think you're alright.

[Bukowski]

What a game to be at! Wore my Gaudreau jersey.
According to the cheap seats, he's a cheater and a bastard, Tkachuk is worse than Marchand (I countered with, "Our Matthew is a Saint!) and Alex Burrows, my God, he's the king of kings, dragon slayer, beautiful man etc etc.
I had fun and those guys were funny, but they shut up after the 4th goal and it was awfully, awfully quiet after the 5th goal.
And my wife lost her Canucks touque. She had no fun. Canucks are no good.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Galakanokis

I don't care what they say about you Text, I think you're alright.

Thanks! (But you should know that everything they say about me is painfully true.)

[Jeff Lebowski]

I haven't been as hard as some here on Janko but I thought he played great last night. I love seeing him use his great hands to beat guys and just showing great effort and jam. He and the whole team just took it to whoever they were lined up against.


When the opponents did get in CGY zone the defense was stout. Time and space taken away and just high, high battle level.


That's what CGY's game looks like - they need to stay in that mental state (compete hard) and let the chips fall where they may.

[Jethro Choicebro]

Not sure if there has been any updates on Hamonic but just saw him at Vancouver airport about to board a flight to Calgary, so assume he is out at least tomorrow

[djsFlames]

Dube now has 13 points in 31 games.

He's trending towards a pretty respectable PPG.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

I haven't been as hard as some here on Janko but I thought he played great last night. I love seeing him use his great hands to beat guys and just showing great effort and jam. He and the whole team just took it to whoever they were lined up against.


When the opponents did get in CGY zone the defense was stout. Time and space taken away and just high, high battle level.


That's what CGY's game looks like - they need to stay in that mental state (compete hard) and let the chips fall where they may.

Spoiler!

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Jethro Choicebro

Not sure if there has been any updates on Hamonic but just saw him at Vancouver airport about to board a flight to Calgary, so assume he is out at least tomorrow

I would assume he will be out for at least the next three? If the prognosis was only a game or two I think he would stay with the team.

[TheScorpion]

I anticipate we'll see a Yelesin recall in short order. Perhaps Valiev if Yelesin is unavailable.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by drewtastic

I can't believe I'm about to say this, however...

From this ATL, it is quite clear that the Canucks fan base is actually sort of reasonable in their takes here, especially when compared to the fan base of the (c)Oil.

Full disclosure: I am impressed by the Canucks' current "rebuild" attempt, especially as compared to that of the (c)Oilers'. Vancouver has a number of players that I respect, as opposed to their early-to-mid 2000s team that housed a number of dinks.

Nevertheless: V=NG. And may the 50 year drought continue, ad infinitum.

I actually agree with this. Was at the game. Part of it seems to be that the Canucks aren't good enough to attract the bandwagon fans, that are the real trouble.

I also find the current team a lot more palatable than the previous incarnations. Guys like Pettersson, Hughes, Border, etc.. all base their game around actually playing hockey, instead of antics and drawing penalties.

That being said chanting Luuuuuuuuuch with a huge flames away fanbase was great.

Also really enjoying being able to buy tickets under retail and getting great seats:

[icecube]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Dube now has 13 points in 31 games.



He's trending towards a pretty respectable PPG.

For 21 years old he isn’t doing too bad. People’s expectations are too high for young NHL’ers. It takes a while to hit your stride unless your talent is elite.


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[djsFlames]

The devoted Canuck fans are at least an intelligible bunch. They can be fairly intellectually honest about what they are watching. They get mad, but will concede an honest truth when warranted.

You just can't say the same about even the oiler hardcores. Still live in a bubble of distorted reality, eating up the propaganda.

[jessnuts]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

A person cannot be "the dominant" anymore than he can be "the big," "the skilled" or "the fast."

A have a hunch if you asked the internet a person could be all of those things

[Buzzard]

Originally Posted by Gaskal

Around the League Report

I don't care for Cassie Campbells commentary just as much as the next guy but, Cassie the cow??

Stay classy there second tier fans.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Canadianman

Must be the frosted tips.

Time to send Johnny and Monahan to Lucic's hairdresser.

Lucic's hair has been like that most, if not all of the year.

[Kovaz]

I think the idea of a dominant player on each D pair is close to the truth, and it's definitely a problem of stylistic fit. But to me it's more about aggressive vs. passive play, and counter-intuitively enough I think two aggressive D or two passive D fit better together than one of each.

Gio and Brodie are both very aggressive defenders. They pinch aggressively, they attack the puck, and they stand up at the blue line. The downside of that aggression is, when they misjudge the play, they get beat. The key is that usually, they can at least disrupt the attacker momentarily. When your partner is also an aggressive defender, that disruption is often enough for the partner to sweep across and steal the puck. How many times have we seen Gio make a questionable pinch and the puck gets chipped by him, only for Brodie to win the race across and completely snuff out the play? Or vice-versa?

Hamonic's problem is he plays extremely passively a lot of the time. Rather than gamble that he can win the race, he'd rather play it safe and back off. So you see a lot of plays where Hanifin will pinch aggressively, same as Gio, get beat, and because Hamonic is backing off, the forward has time to recover the puck and it's a 2 on 1. It looks like Hanifin just messed up and Hamonic got hung out to dry, but it's not so clear cut. The problem is that they're out of sync as a pair. Hanifin could have backed off and then they defend a 2 on 2, or Hamonic could have attacked the puck and stopped the rush altogether.

I think Andersson does a much better job of reading his partner and anticipating the pinch, so he'll cover across aggressively which fits better with what Hanifin wants to do. And I think Hamonic would be a better fit with a more passive partner. But having Hanifin defend passively every time really doesn't play to his strengths and sets him up to fail, as does playing Hamonic with a partner that wants to attack the puck.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

The devoted Canuck fans are at least an intelligible bunch. They can be fairly intellectually honest about what they are watching. They get mad, but will concede an honest truth when warranted.

You just can't say the same about even the oiler hardcores. Still live in a bubble of distorted reality, eating up the propaganda.

That's because they have never won anything. If they have a cup they would turn into Oiler fans. Everytime someone posts something negative about Lucic, they need to remember that he is forever a hero!

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Kovaz

I think the idea of a dominant player on each D pair is close to the truth, and it's definitely a problem of stylistic fit. But to me it's more about aggressive vs. passive play, and counter-intuitively enough I think two aggressive D or two passive D fit better together than one of each.

Gio and Brodie are both very aggressive defenders. They pinch aggressively, they attack the puck, and they stand up at the blue line. The downside of that aggression is, when they misjudge the play, they get beat. The key is that usually, they can at least disrupt the attacker momentarily. When your partner is also an aggressive defender, that disruption is often enough for the partner to sweep across and steal the puck. How many times have we seen Gio make a questionable pinch and the puck gets chipped by him, only for Brodie to win the race across and completely snuff out the play? Or vice-versa?

Hamonic's problem is he plays extremely passively a lot of the time. Rather than gamble that he can win the race, he'd rather play it safe and back off. So you see a lot of plays where Hanifin will pinch aggressively, same as Gio, get beat, and because Hamonic is backing off, the forward has time to recover the puck and it's a 2 on 1. It looks like Hanifin just messed up and Hamonic got hung out to dry, but it's not so clear cut. The problem is that they're out of sync as a pair. Hanifin could have backed off and then they defend a 2 on 2, or Hamonic could have attacked the puck and stopped the rush altogether.

I think Andersson does a much better job of reading his partner and anticipating the pinch, so he'll cover across aggressively which fits better with what Hanifin wants to do. And I think Hamonic would be a better fit with a more passive partner. But having Hanifin defend passively every time really doesn't play to his strengths and sets him up to fail, as does playing Hamonic with a partner that wants to attack the puck.

Great post. Beyond all that I think it makes a huge difference who your F3 is with respect to 3-on-2s rather than 2-on-1s. If it's Backlund or Ryan, usually they will catch up. Bennett and Lindholm are also solid, although both have a tendancy to get caught deep at times. Monahan and Jankowski make me uneasy because even though they're positionally solid, they play that same passive style that seems so out-of-sync.

I think when Backlund was on the wing he was really struggling because he wasn't the F3 very often, and so his best aset was being mitigated, and this had a trickle-down effect. Moving him back down the middle was a good plan.

[stemit14]

Great game from the flames! I know he’s prone to big mistakes (like in the last Edmonton game) but I’m usually pretty impressed with Kylington. His skill level and skating can create some great opportunities. And he also uses his fantastic speed defensively as well.

I think the flames are still trying to develop his defensive responsibilities and trying to make him break his habit of terrible give-aways that often come from trying to hold onto the puck too long. But I would like to see him given some more offensive opportunities as well though. It’s hard to give him powerplay time cause gio, Brodie, Andersson, and Anderson are ahead of him in the pecking order for ice time.

I just think he has the skillset to contribute more given the chance. Obviously Quinn Hughes is a better player than Kylington... but I was impressed last night by the canucks having a defenseman with the speed and puck-handling ability to achieve zone entries on the powerplay. It makes it so there is another option instead of the bump-back. I think it would be interesting to see how well he could do on the top powerplay unit with Gaudreau. If he could perform zone entries similar to how Hughes does it... it would give the flames another option on the powerplay.


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