[News Roundup] Tuesday, December 5th, 2017

[Cheese]

On this day in hockey

1970 - The Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe Trophy and the Bill Masterson trophy were stolen from the NHL Hall of Fame.

Flames Thoughts: Poor game management costs Calgary again

Derek Wills


The Flames sometimes struggle to manage games. Here are a couple of recent cases in point.
Trailing the Oilers 2-0 last Saturday, Michael Frolik scored a short-handed goal to make it 2-1. Right after he scored, I said on the air “Okay, they’re back in it, but now they need to kill off the rest of this penalty.” Technically the Flames did, but four seconds later, the Oilers scored to regain a two-goal lead.
On Monday, Brouwer scored with 1:45 left in the first period to give the Flames a 1-0 lead for just the 11th time this season. The Flames couldn’t let the Flyers get that goal back before the end of the period. But they did. 1:01 later, Valterri Filppula scored to tie the game.
The Flames have to do a better job managing games.

Milestone holds great significance to Flames captain Giordano

Wes Gilbertson


“One of the funnier moments when I was in Russia?” ponders Calgary Flames mainstay Mark Giordano, turning back the clock a decade to reminisce about spending the winter of 2007-08 with Moscow Dynamo of what is now known as the Kontinental Hockey League. “One time, we were in downtown Moscow, and we looked over and a guy was walking a brown bear. I think it was a black bear actually, a smaller one, but it was still a bear. He had it on a leash. Me and my wife were just like, ‘Wow.’
“You know how, in the city, they have guys playing guitar or whatever for a little bit of cash? I think he was showing off his bear, that was his gig.
“We didn’t go near it.”
Flames Prospect Update: Dillon Dube starts to dominate

Kent Wilson

At the NHL level, the Calgary Flames are facing down some grave concerns about their on-going inability to defend and win games consistently.

Things are rosier for the organization at the amateur level, however, with a number of the club's prospects putting together a big November.


Flames still looking to develop identity

Steve MacFarlaneNow in the second quarter of the season, the Calgary Flames are still next to impossible to figure out.
Built around their defence, which was predicted in the preseason to be among the very best units in the league, they’re actually among the worst in keeping shots away from one of their key offseason acquisitions — goaltender Mike Smith. Yet the Flames have improved their possession play since last year, according to the NHL’s advanced stats metrics.
That counter-intuitive contrast may be because of how dominant Johnny Gaudreau has been early this season, before his current three-game point drought.
But teams often develop their identity by this time of year, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone inside or outside the locker room who can tell you exactly what that is at the moment.