[PGT] Painful loss to the Ducks

[Toonage]

Pinder was right this morning. They keep this up and they'll get their goals. The shooting % won't remain this low.

I also fully expect Markstrom to round into form sooner than later.

That said, I'd be happy if Zadorov saw the bench a bit more. Or the press box.

I'm a pessimist, but even I know its only game 2.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Lil Pedro

Can't believe this team prioritized protecting their often injured and underperforming "#1 Centre" over their puck moving #1 Dman...sure would have been nice to have him in OT tonight

His team got trampled last night.

I don't think Gio would be solving all our finishing woes, even if he would be a huge improvement over Zad.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I just don't think that's the case anymore in the NHL where there's so much parity and even expansion teams can now be competitive on day one as all players are conditioned and play hard most nights. It's a results based league and to win in consistently you need timely goaltending and goal scoring. Two things the Flames have received neither. The stuff in-between is window dressing IMO that keeps fancy stats people busy and provides fans silver linings after losses. We sat through some Gulutzan seasons of 60 minutes efforts that never led anywhere and Darryl's Kings team missed the playoffs 2 of the last 3 seasons while being advanced stat darlings. It's a skill driven league now and the Flames are kind of going against the grain.

Expansion teams are successful now because of the rules. Not because of parity.

2000 expansion draft (which was the last of the last expansion era) - you could protect 9 forwards, 5 defense and a goalie. The Flames protected guys like Andrei Nazarov and Clarke Wilm.

[GioforPM]

I was actually only unhappy with Zadorov last night. Mistakes were made by others leading to the goals, but the same players that made them played well for most of the game. I mean, goal 2 was cause to a great degree by Mangiapane, but he played a great game overall. Hanifin and Monahan had a critical error that IMO was caused to a large extent by a bad decision to push the play instead of changing lines anyway, but otherwise I thought they were good.

[Monahammer]

I watched the entire game last night, and though the shots were tilted favorably I actually didn't feel like the flames were in control or dominating the play for more than a few minutes maybe. Even then I was still fearful every time the ducks had the puck. When the ducks evened it up I knew in my stomach that we were going to lose.

This is not a well built team. I think it's being held together by stick tape atm.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by 442scotty

For me, I found the game entertaining and thought they put in a pretty good effort for the full game which in itself was shocking. It’s the first game I watched in it’s entirety for quite a while. Disappointed with the results but at least it was fun to watch for a change

You are the first guy to actually stand by what a lot of people said off season - “I don’t care if they win, just be entertaining and show effort”. Then they do that and people are “I don’t care about anything but results”.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Lil Pedro

Can't believe this team prioritized protecting their often injured and underperforming "#1 Centre" over their puck moving #1 Dman...sure would have been nice to have him in OT tonight

If they had protected Gio and exposed Monahan they would have also had to expose two more forwards.
Remember it was 7-3 or 8 skaters.

So under the 8 skaters you in theory are going Gio, Andersson, Tanev and Hanifin on the back end plus Gaudreau, Lindholm, Tkachuk, Eat Bread

Exposing Monahan, Backlund and Dube.

Even if you are comfortable with Monahan and Backlund being exposed, are you comfortable exposing Dube?

[Your Calgary Flames!]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I just don't think that's the case anymore in the NHL where there's so much parity and even expansion teams can now be competitive on day one as all players are conditioned and play hard most nights. It's a results based league and to win in consistently you need timely goaltending and goal scoring. Two things the Flames have received neither. The stuff in-between is window dressing IMO that keeps fancy stats people busy and provides fans silver linings after losses. We sat through some Gulutzan seasons of 60 minutes efforts that never led anywhere and Darryl's Kings team missed the playoffs 2 of the last 3 seasons while being advanced stat darlings. It's a skill driven league now and the Flames are kind of going against the grain.

I understand where you’re coming from. But Calgary, with this core, has never played this type of hockey. It’s 2 games in and to me it feels if they keep it up good things can happen. At the very least if they don’t win it will be entertaining

[neo45]

It was strange seeing Gudbranson and Ritchie actually have solid games


Second goal isn’t remotely Gudbranson’s fault he played it properly. Actually thought Valimaki was dragging that pair down a bit if anything

[rogermexico]

I was pretty happy for the most part. If they forecheck like that most nights, it's going to go well. Really excited about what we saw from Coleman and thought him and Backlund were a great pair together. Loved Hanifin and Rasmus. Gaudreau is continuing to look like Johnny Gaudreau. I liked Trevor Lewis a lot — he's great in that role and should form the basis of a really solid fourth line.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Bingo

And I'd add the finishing is the bigger issue.

Markstrom five on five is at zero for goals given up beyond expected. That's average as average can be. Not what you want from Markstrom he needs to be better but the issue is the team's finish rates compared to what they're generating.

As you point out ... it's not just perimeter shots, they're driving into the paint and creating lots of quality chances.

SC Shooting Percentage 32nd
SC Save Percentage 16th

HD Shooting Percentage 28th
HD Save Percentage 13th

XGF vs GF 5 on 5 -2.2
XGA vs GA 5 on 5 0.2

Markstrom needs to be better, but it's on the offence through two games ... which was honestly one of my biggest fears. The transition has been way better than I thought, so they're generating more offence (two game sample size) than expected. But their finish is still a huge issue.

Yeah if you want to go looking for rain clouds, it's that the team likely isn't going to keep dominating shots, chances and possession to this extent. Right now Flames have exceeded their opponent's shot totals by 50%. Without looking, I'm pretty confident in saying no NHL team has done that for a season. So the fact is, these two games were lost opportunities for points in the standings which certainly could hurt at some point.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

If they had protected Gio and exposed Monahan they would have also had to expose two more forwards.
Remember it was 7-3 or 8 skaters.

So under the 8 skaters you in theory are going Gio, Andersson, Tanev and Hanifin on the back end plus Gaudreau, Lindholm, Tkachuk, Eat Bread

Exposing Monahan, Backlund and Dube.

Even if you are comfortable with Monahan and Backlund being exposed, are you comfortable exposing Dube?

The team definitely made the right decisions at the expansion draft IMO. I suppose what can be debated endlessly is if they had the right roster going into the expansion draft in general.

[MrMike]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

If they had protected Gio and exposed Monahan they would have also had to expose two more forwards.
Remember it was 7-3 or 8 skaters.

So under the 8 skaters you in theory are going Gio, Andersson, Tanev and Hanifin on the back end plus Gaudreau, Lindholm, Tkachuk, Eat Bread

Exposing Monahan, Backlund and Dube.

Even if you are comfortable with Monahan and Backlund being exposed, are you comfortable exposing Dube?

And with the way Seattle was taking guys, they were not taking term or money so say bye bye to Dube.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

I watched the entire game last night, and though the shots were tilted favorably I actually didn't feel like the flames were in control or dominating the play for more than a few minutes maybe. Even then I was still fearful every time the ducks had the puck. When the ducks evened it up I knew in my stomach that we were going to lose.

This is not a well built team. I think it's being held together by stick tape atm.

I don’t know how you watched that entire game and didn’t feel like the first 30 minutes were all Flames.

I agree when the goal went in late the Flames were losing the game.

Don’t really know what you are trying to say with “team being held together by tape” comment? Is that a shot at the depth, leadership, talent? Tough to tell from my perspective

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

The team definitely made the right decisions at the expansion draft IMO. I suppose what can be debated endlessly is if they had the right roster going into the expansion draft in general.

Well, yes, they should have worked on trading Gio, but the time to do that was the TDL and they were supposedly still “in it”. Leading to the draft, there weren’t a whole lot of teams that could absorb Gio and not have to expose him or another valuable defenceman as well, plus the return player(s) would have to be non-exposable.

And then you’d lose CP darling Kylington.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Your Calgary Flames!

I understand where you’re coming from. But Calgary, with this core, has never played this type of hockey. It’s 2 games in and to me it feels if they keep it up good things can happen. At the very least if they don’t win it will be entertaining

Agreed.

People are comparing it to hockey under GG but they never played like this under him.They have been quick, relentless, and playing with speed in transition.

And I thought last night they generated a ton of high quality chances.

Tkachuk had 2-3 chances on his own (notably a post, and wrap around chance that just missed), Gaudreau had some chances if he'd hit the net, Mangiapane had a couple of chances in tight, Dube had a chance that was a nice save, Monahan had a nice chance on play where he came off the half wall.

Thought the PP maintained possession and generated a lot of opportunities too.

Honestly they deserved to score 4 goals last night and thought they did a much better job of creating quality than they did against Edmonton

[Knut]

I also think there is an issue with Defenseman handling the puck like a grenade. Even Rasmus was firing it off his stick way too fast and not making good choices with the puck. Slap shots at your teamates head seldom work out. He needs to just get pucks at the net.

[Pierre "Monster" McGuire]

I thought they played just fine last night. The scoring chances were there, there were making good, smart plays and they had the Ducks on their heels a good portion of the game. If they keep playing like that, they won't lose very often.


However, Monahan has been a non-factor and is bringing down the Dube and Bread line badly. So far he's been a shell, but I really hope those surgeries haven't caught up with him. Zadorov is who we knew he was. He's slow and makes boneheaded plays.


All in all, most of the team is playing pretty damn well except for a few. I think they'll be fine.

[Scornfire]

Hard to take a team that traded an asset for a 3.75m Zadorov seriously. No chance anyone is taking a hometown discount to stay here when this is how we use that extra cap space

[Rollin22x]

Zadorov had pretty bad giveaways but so did Tkachuk.
Good effort. The powerplay lacks enough movement to open better lanes. We have a couple of guys like Johnny that can move the puck. Too many of them float in their typical spot and it leaves guys like JG with little to work with.
I'm hoping guys like Coleman get them to understand that they need another gear to get to. They looked good in the first but Coleman pointed out that they could be better.